


The Unknown Soldier's Prophecy

by BeggarWhoRides



Series: Red, White, and Blue AU [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate universe - Marvel, Canon-Typical Violence, Chapter-specific Warnings in Notes, F/F, Gen, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 53,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7245229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeggarWhoRides/pseuds/BeggarWhoRides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1945, Cosima Niehaus--better known as Cosima Sadler and best known as Captain America--crashed her plane into the Arctic Ocean and disappeared.</p><p>In 1945, Doctor Delphine Cormier led a mission to recover the plane, walked across the Arctic tundra, and vanished.</p><p>In the 21st century, one of them woke and tried to pick up the pieces, only to find herself in pulled into something much larger--and something even more important than her own life.</p><p> </p><p>(A retelling of <i>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</i> starring Cosima Niehaus)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings this chapter for: Minor drug use (pot), descriptions of death and drowning, depression.

_Go, return not die in war._

_\--The Oracle of Delphi to an unknown soldier_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_It was supposed to be quick._

_That’s what she was thinking--she wasn’t thinking about it much, so focused on stopping the bombs from reaching New York, from not letting anyone find the location of the Tessaract, listening to the crackling radio and Delphine’s voice, holding onto Delphine’s voice, trying not to let Delphine hear her cry._

_She could hear Delphine crying._

_And then she couldn’t, and the plane’s nose was inches from the water, and she couldn’t hear Delphine crying anymore, and she couldn’t decide if the static was better or worse than that._

_It was supposed to be quick._

_It wasn’t._

_The water punched through the glass, and she clung to the joystick, pressed into the seat, the air smashed out of her lungs as the glass and freezing water sliced through her like knives, like swords, like nothing she’d ever felt or ever wanted to again._

_And then she was falling forward as she felt the plane sink, shifting and tilting forward, and the water kept pouring in._

_It was cold._

_That was all she could think, over and over and over, the water rushing in and filling the gaping cockpit in what felt like seconds and hours all at the same time, slamming her into the back wall of the room and surrounding her, burning her eyes even though they were shut, freezing her down to the core of her bones._

_Her arms dragged through the water, weighed down by the cold and her clothes, but she tried anyway, reaching upward--_

_She didn’t want to die._

_Her mouth opened against her will, some animalistic instinct telling her to breathe, and then ice and salt was blazing down her throat, into her chest, and numb fingers sprang to life as she tried to claw it out, the pain unimaginable, unbearable, paralyzing, crushing her and freezing her and burning her and there was nothing but pain and cold and pain and she didn’t want to die, she didn’t, she--_

_“Don’t be afraid.”_

_The world was white and soft around the edges all of a sudden, and Delphine was there above her, golden curls waving in a warm breeze, her face gentle._

_Delphine’s fingers felt like a summer afternoon as they caressed her cheek, and she smiled so kindly, so lovingly._

_“I will never leave you.”_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima opened her eyes.

She was still gasping as she disentangled herself from the bedsheets, fumbling for the glasses she didn’t need to see but whose familiar weight and feel she _needed._ The clock on the bedside table read _6:01_ in too-bright, too-red letters, practically burning her eyes.

The room was exactly the same as it was when she’d fallen asleep the night before--bare white walls, beige curtains hanging limply over the windows, a calendar across the bed open to the March page and its picture of the Orion nebula, next to a half-full black bookshelf. She shoved the sheets away and stumbled over to one set of curtains, pushing them aside and pushing through the french doors that were beyond them.

Only when she was leaning heavily on the balcony railing, a breeze running through her loose dark curls, did she stop to breathe, closing her eyes and inhaling.

This century had its own smell, gritty and heavy with exhaust and metal, always noisy, always moving. Two years later it was still strange, still grating, still nothing she wanted. But it was familiar, at least, and impossible to recreate.

It meant she was still in this century.

She hadn’t lost another 70 years at least.

Cosima let go of the railing slowly, trailing her fingers along the metal as she crossed over to the little table on the balcony and opened the drawer there, pulling out a thin blunt and a box of matches.

The sun was creeping across the horizon, turning the once-black orange and pink. She struck the match against the railing and for a few moments, as she lit the blunt, the tiny flame burned brighter than the sky. 

In one movement she dropped the match into a chipped mug half-full of rainwater and raised the joint to her lips and inhaled, her eyes fluttering closed.

She sagged against the railing, her hair tumbling down her shoulders, her dark sweatshirt and black sleeping pants hanging shapelessly over her small frame.

She tilted her head back and exhaled grey into the vibrant sky.

The orange had faded to blue and the second blunt is burning down to nothing between her fingers when a voice came from her left.

“Morning, neighbor.” 

Cosima jerked, nearly dropping the blunt, and her neighbor winced apologetically.

“Sorry, didn’t meant to startle you--” 

“It’s fine,” Cosima said quickly, stubbing out the roll against the railing. “It’s Shay, right?”

“Mmhm,” the blonde woman on the other balcony replied, her blue eyes twinkling in the early morning light. “Sorry, I’m terrible with names, it’s Cosima right?” 

“Yeah,” Cosima said, trying to be embarrassed by the fact that she was staring at a gorgeous woman while wearing the clothes she’d slept in, but not quite managing it. Shay smiled and turned away, setting down the laundry basket she’d brought out with her, hanging a few pieces up on the line. Cosima raised an eyebrow. “Bit early for laundry, isn’t it?” 

Shay tilted her head back and sniffed the air. “Bit early for pot, isn’t it?”

“I’m not getting high,” Cosima clarified quickly. _I don’t think there’s enough pot in the world to get me high._ “Just enough to make the world a little soft around the edges.”

“You sound like a real San Francisco kind of girl.” 

“Born and bred,” Cosima laughed, already feeling the pot’s effects fading. “Raised in Brooklyn, though. Is the pot a problem? Because I can--”

“No,” Shay said, her eyes lighting in a strange way as she met Cosima’s gaze. There was something almost cool, almost calculating there. “You’re just not what I expected.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The phone buzzed brightly next to Cosima’s leg. She didn’t even look up from the book in her lap as she answered.

“Let me guess--the Invisible Man’s running rampant through San Francisco.” 

_“How many times do I have to tell you that’s really not what the future’s like?”_

Cosima huffed, shutting the _Origin of Species_ and setting it aside. “You woke me up after 70 years to fight aliens and expect me to not have sci fi ideas about this century?”

On the other end of the line, Natasha Romanoff sighed heavily.

_“Believe it or not, I’m not actually calling at Fury’s request. We both have the day off.”_

“...And?” 

_“And you need to do something with your time, Sadler. There’s a new rom-com out--”_

“You’re calling me about this?” Cosima asked, half-incredulous. “Where’s Hawkeye?” 

_“Clint’s on a mission somewhere classified, won’t be back for a few weeks. You have seen nothing of this century but aliens in New York and the inside of your apartment.”_

“Yeah, well rom-coms aren’t really my thing. Not in 1945, not now.” 

_“Fine,”_ Natasha sighed, and Cosima started reaching for the book again, hopeful that she’d convinced the Russian to leave her alone for now. _“In that case, I know a great manicurist. Salon’s got a sale.”_

Cosima groaned, looking longingly at her book. _“Nat--”_

_“It’s manicures,”_ Natasha said, in that deadly voice only she could pull off, _“Or ‘Winter’s Tale.’”_

“Fine,” Cosima sighed, pushing her glasses aside to rub her forehead. “But if the next big bad Fury calls us in to fight ends up laughing at my nails, I’m blaming you.” 

_“Wear something nice.”_

“I will.” 

_“Sweatpants and a t-shirt don’t count as nice.”_

“It’s clothes that would get me arrested 70 years ago, isn’t that enough?”

_“Cosima…”_

“Fine.” She slid off the bed, padding over to her closet and rifling through it. “You know I’m only doing this because I’m scared to piss you off, right?”

_“Damn right.”_ Natasha hung up and Cosima tossed the phone onto the bed, staring at her closet of mostly SHIELD-issued workout clothes. 

The nice thing was, no pantyhose. The bad part was…

Well.

Giving it up as a lost cause, she slipped into her bathroom instead, and painted on eyeliner with a steady hand.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Natasha raised an eyebrow when Cosima met her in front of the salon that was far too pink and bubbly for Cosima’s taste.

It was like something Alison would’ve thought up, not where she expected Natasha could-kill-you-with-her-thighs Romanoff spent her time.

“It’s one of the few actually secure locations in the city,” Natasha clarified when she saw the skeptical look on Cosima’s face. “And you need to get out of your apartment for something other than missions.”

Natasha wasn’t wearing her mission suit, having traded it in for skinny pants that were basically painted on and a white flowy top, her red hair curled and loose. Cosima readjusted her glasses.

“What’s so great about this salon, then?”

“You’ll see.” Natasha turned to face the door and her posture shifted, her eyes widened, and she pushed open the door.

“Ohmigosh, _Nattie!”_

_“Krystal!”_ Natasha chirped, bubbly-bright, and Cosima blinked in shock before following Natasha through the door.

Inside the bright and acetone-smelling salon, Natasha embraced an enthusiastic blonde who seemed to be wearing nothing but pink. _Scratch that,_ Cosima thought as the blonde stepped back to talk excitedly. _Black physics-defying bra._

“You haven’t even _called_ in _weeks,_ Nattie! God, I was like, so worried, you could’ve just died or something and I wouldn’t even--what have you been doing?” The woman stopped suddenly, grabbing Natasha’s hand and pulling it up to her eyes. “Just _look_ at your poor hands! Anyone would think you were like, climbing a mountain using only your nails or something.”

Natasha laughed, easily ignoring Cosima’s look. “You have the most ridiculous metaphors, Krys.”

“I’m _serious!_ Just look at how ragged these are! I’m gonna need like, three emery boards--”

“Krystal, Krystal,” Natasha laughed, running her hand down the blonde’s arm. “I’m sorry, I was out of the country for a bit--”

“Your photography, yeah? You’ve gotta show me some of them, sometime, I’m sure you’re like, insanely talented. You’ve just got that _look,_ you know?”

“You’re too nice, Krys,” Natasha giggled. “You’re gonna embarrass me in the middle of your salon! And in front of my friend, too!”

“Ohmygod!” Krystal turned to Cosima, who blanched as the full weight of the blonde’s attention landed squarely on her. Krystal’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, and Cosima sucked in a terrified breath when she thought she saw recognition in the blonde’s eyes. A second later, however, she closed her mouth and had a bright, customer-welcoming smile again. “I’m _so_ sorry--I totally didn’t see you there--hi,” she said eagerly, holding out a rhinestone-studded hand. “I’m Krystal. You’re a friend of Nattie’s?”

“Uh, yeah,” Cosima said, shaking her hand. _“Nattie_ and I go way back.”

“So you must be a photographer too!” Krystal beamed, seeming totally and genuinely delighted. “That’s _so_ incredible, making art from ordinary things. I just find it really amazing, you know? And just...totally beautiful.”

“...Yeah,” Cosima said slowly, her smile feeling pale next to Krystal’s. 

“Krys,” Natasha interrupted, linking her arm with Krystal’s and squeezing. “My friend’s new to the area, and I told her would _never_ trust my nails with anybody else. I gotta dash, but you think you could squeeze her into your schedule?”

“Any friend of Nattie’s is like, _absolutely_ a friend of mine,” Krystal said, and the next thing Cosima knew, she was sitting at a table with Krystal on the other side, turning her hand over and tsking sympathetically.

“Honey, these nails look like they’re from, like, a war zone. Have you ever had them done before?”

“No, I...never really had the time, I guess,” Cosima said, and Krystal hmm’d. 

“I can understand that, especially if you do the same work Nattie does. She’ll like, disappear for weeks, you know? Her work’s super-important to her, and it’s totally admirable, but you’ve gotta take care of yourself too! My mom always said like, you’ve gotta put your own oxygen mask on before helping other people. She was a flight attendant, but I think there’s something really true about that, ya know? You can’t help other people breathe if you’re not breathing.”

“...Right,” Cosima said, trying to nod along to Krystal’s bright monologue. Her response seemed to be enough for Krystal, who beamed as she worked on Cosima’s nails, her own fingers hummingbird-quick.

“Ohmygosh, I haven’t even asked your name! That is so rude, you know like, my life’s story and I didn’t even ask a thing about you!”

“That’s fine,” Cosima said with a little laugh. “I’m Cosima. I work with, um, Nattie.”

“That’s such a pretty name!” Krystal looked Cosima in the eye as she gently massaged Cosima’s hand. “Like Captain America’s. You know, she was totally my hero when I was little. I had, like, a What Would Captain America do t-shirt and everything.”

“Really,” Cosima asked, and Krystal nodded enthusiastically. 

“I even did a project on her in high school. _Such_ a hero,” Krystal gushed, rubbing sweet-smelling lotion into Cosima’s hand. “I’ve always wanted to meet her, just to thank her, you know? She’s done so much, and…” To Cosima’s horror, Krystal started to tear up. 

“Sorry,” Krystal squeaked, using one hand to fan at her eyes. “I just emotional, you know? She saved the world, and she’s so _strong._ And it’s gotta be tough, right? All the fighting in the war, and then waking up like, a hundred years later and saving the world _again.”_ She picked up Cosima’s hand again, filing Cosima’s nails. “Like, I could barely survive when my boyfriend moved to Alaska. I just think it’s really incredible. Cuz she’s like, proof.” 

“Of what?” Cosima couldn’t help asking, and Krystal looked up again, gently squeezing Cosima’s hand.

“That nothing can crush the human spirit.” The sheer optimism and faith in Krystal’s voice made Cosima take a shuddering breath and look away, staring at her lap instead of the manicurist’s bright face. Krystal squeezed her hand again, gently, before setting it on the table.

“So what color would you like?”

“I don’t, um…” Cosima glanced toward the rows of colorful bottles on the counter. “I don’t really know.”

“Okay,” Krystal said, just as cheerily as before. “That’s okay. D’you mind if I pick?”

“Go crazy,” Cosima said, the absolute delight on Krystal’s face making Cosima smile back. The blonde ran a perfectly-manicured finger across a few bottles before grabbing a yellow that was about as bright as it could get without being fluorescent and a little pack of rhinestones.

“You look like you could use a little brightness,” Krystal explained in a stage-whisper as she started painting. “Plus, yellow is like, my second-favorite color.” 

“Is pink your first?” 

“It _is,”_ Krystal said, pulling a hand back to gesture to her pink skin-tight dress. “It’s so _happy,_ you know? Sometimes a color can make all the difference. I mean, you must get that, being a photographer.” 

“I think it matters more to you,” Cosima said, shrugging. “I can adjust the colors of a photo later, but being a nail artist must take a lot of skill.” 

“Oh my gosh,” Krystal whispered, “That is like...one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me. _Thank_ you.”

“Thank _you,”_ Cosima replied, and Krystal beamed.

“You know what else can help when you’re like, feeling down? Running. I mean, you and Nattie are both so fit, you must work out, but this is like, a beautiful city, and it makes your brain like, release some things? Enny-somethings.” 

“Endorphins.” 

“Yeah, those,” Krystal said, smiling at Cosima before carefully placing a rhinestone on Cosima’s cuticle. “You should try it.”


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings this chapter for: fighting/violence, discussion of PTSD

“On your left!”

It was 5:51 AM in Washington D.C., the sun was just beginning to rise behind the Washington Monument--

“On your left!” 

_“Damn it!”_

And Cosima Niehaus, known to the world as Captain Cosima Sadler or simply Captain America, was grinning near-manically as she jogged past an increasingly sweaty and frustrated man. 

“On your left!”

“Come _on!”_

Cosima threw her head back and laughed, not breaking her stride. The sun’s beams were starting to truly crawl across the horizon, warm on her back and glinting off her dark waves of hair, the end of her high ponytail brushing against her upper back. Behind her, the man cursed and started running faster.

In the 1940’s, there’d been no time for testing limits, at least none outside the battlefield when it was more survival than enjoyment. There’d also been a distinct lack of women’s running wear or shoes--both of which were high on the list of things Cosima liked about this century.

“Don’t say it, do _not--”_

Cosima pivoted on one foot and jogged backwards past the sweating, panting man, smiling all the way.

“On your left!”

“Why _you--”_

Several minutes later, with the sun climbing steadily into the sky behind her and barely out of breath, Cosima over to the man half-collapsed beneath a tree and offered him a hand.

“You alright?”

“No, I need new lungs,” he scoffed, taking her hand and letting her pull him up. “And you’re a little shit.” 

“I prefer Cosima,” she smirked, “But hey, whatever works. I know it can be a bit much to remember.”

“You…” The man shook his head, but he was grinning. “Well, if you can remember my name, it’s Sam. Sam Wilson.” 

“Well, I’m Cosima--” 

“Sadler. Yeah, I kinda figured. You know you just ran, like, 20k in 30 minutes?”

“Yeah, well…” Cosima sighed, rolling her shoulders. “I overslept.” 

“Yeah, that must be it. You better go take another lap.” Sam blinked and stared at her again. “You take it? I assume you just took it.” 

“I took two, actually.”

“Of course.” They both chuckled, shaking before dropping their hands.

“You a soldier?” Cosima asked, eyeing Sam’s build and his naturally straight posture. The straight back was something she’d been surrounded by for months, but had never quite managed to pick up. 

But it was something that didn’t seem to have changed between 1945 and 2014, and she found herself finding it almost comforting. 

“Yeah, 58th Rescue Squadron. Served two tours, but now I work down at the VA. Veteran’s Affairs,” he clarified quickly, at Cosima’s confused stare. “Helping people with PTSD, the transition back, all that.” 

“PTS--oh, like shell shock, right?” His wince told her that it wasn’t quite the proper term to use anymore, and she grimaced apologetically. “Sorry, that’s not okay--God, so much is different now.” 

“Like your pillow?” 

“What?” 

“Your pillow,” Sam continued, “You know, when I was serving, I’d sleep on the ground, rocks for pillows all caveman-like. Then I come home, lay in my bed, and it’s like--”

“Like marshmallows,” Cosima said, feeling a bit of the tension drain out of her for the first time since she’d been thrown into battling aliens in the middle of a New York she hadn’t recognized--maybe for the first time since she’d woken up in this century. “Like it’s not even there and I’m gonna fall through. Although,” she added, shifting into a more relaxed stance. “Have you heard of this memory foam thing? It basically molds to your body, and then it just _stays_ that way. Apparently it’s something to do with body heat--” 

“You don’t really miss the old days then, huh?” Sam asked, chuckling. Cosima shrugged, glancing away from him and planting her hands on her hips, as if they’d give something away if she let them dance like they normally did. 

“I mean, you guys went to the _moon._ And just got rid of polio, so that’s pretty awesome. So’s the internet, you have _no idea_ what I would’ve given to have something like that back then. I love Google,” she said, almost reverentially, and Sam barked a laugh.

“So that’s what you’ve been doing since New York? Googling things?” 

“Kind of,” she admitted, brushing off the New York comment as best she could--she really didn’t want to think too much about how ecstatic she’d been when she’d learned that the strange image the Tessaract had projected when she’d been fighting Schmidt (a few months and a lifetime ago) had been _galaxies,_ that the beautiful colors of outer space actually existed and were being explored, that life beyond this planet was possible. That was quickly crushed when she was thrown into a New York she didn’t recognize and told that said wonder and miracle of life was attempting to destroy the city, and it was her job to eliminate them. “I mean, that was the plan, but then I discovered that Nova show, so I watched that.” 

Sam gave her a blank look. “All of it?” 

“Yeah?”

“There’s like 600 episodes. You watched all of them.” 

“Yeah, well I’m not really one for sleep.” 

“Okay, this is a travesty,” Sam said, his voice deadly serious. “There is no way in hell I’m letting Captain America’s impression of this century be limited to _Neil DeGrasse Tyson.”_

“Okay, he’s awesome, someone said he’s got a new show called _Cosmos--”_

“Give me some paper.” 

“What?”

Sam held out his hand impatiently, and Cosima rooted through her pockets before pulling out a small notebook and a pencil stub and handing them over.

“You’ve got pockets in those?” he asked with a raised eyebrow as he wrote something in the little book. “My sister’s gone off on so many rants because her pants never have pockets. She could write a book.” 

“I bought the men’s,” Cosima admitted, shrugging. “They’re comfortable. Still not totally used to this century’s habit of skin-tight clothes.” 

“Bit different than the 1940s sensibilities, huh?” He finished writing and handed the notebook back, closed around the pencil stub. Cosima took it with a grateful nod before opening it and squinting at the note written there.

“Troubleman soundtrack? What’s a soundtrack?” 

“It’s like background music in a movie. This movie, it’s alright, but the soundtrack--it’s Marvin Gaye at his best. Everything you missed but on one CD.”

“I’ll check it out,” Cosima promised, tucking the notebook back into her pocket. “Seems like everyone’s got their own opinions of what’s most important.” 

“Yeah, but this is _Marvin Gaye._ Just listen. You’ll get it.”

“I’ve gotta tell you though, I’m kinda into this electro-pop stuff.” 

Sam stared at her, incredulous, and Cosima smirked as a sleek black car pulled onto the curb nearby. They both looked over at it and Cosima sighed. 

“Duty calls,” she said, strolling over to the car. “But good attempt at a run, Sam.” 

“Oh,” Sam snorted, “That’s how it is?” 

“Oh, that is how it is.”

“Alright,” Sam said, “And hey, anytime you wanna stop by the VA, just mention that I sent you.”

“What, that’s the only way you’ll get in?”

“No, but you’ll make me look great in front of the girl at the front desk.”

“Well, if it’s for a good cause…” 

The window of the dark car rolled down and Cosima was entirely unsurprised to see Natasha Romanoff staring out, glancing behind Cosima and at Sam with a raised eyebrow.

“Hey there,” she said, and out of the corner of her eye Cosima saw Sam straighten up behind her. “Do you know the way to the Smithsonian? I’m looking for a fossil.” 

“You’re so funny,” Cosima deadpanned, and Natasha looked back with an even more impassive face.

“How, uh, how are you?” Sam asked, and Natasha looked over at him blankly. 

“Hey.” 

Sam shifted where he stood, looking over the shining black car. “Man, when you don’t run, you ride in style.” 

“Super-soldier does what a super-soldier has to do,” Cosima said, sliding into the passenger seat of the car. “So, Nat, what rom-com is it this time?”

“Not this time, Captain.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Target is a mobile satellite launch platform, the Lemurian Star. They were sending up their last payload when pirates took them.”

“They still have those in the 21st century?”

Cosima adjusted her gloves as she spoke, her glasses already tucked safely into a pocket and her hair hanging in a low ponytail that she could easily slip her helmet over her. Natasha stood next to her, undoubtedly armed with near-countless weapons beyond the Widow’s Bites on her wrists. She looked as comfortable in her practically painted-on tactical suit as she had the day before in her flowing white top and jeans.

“Algerian pirates, Captain. Armed with plenty of machine guns and less fond of making people walk the plank than you remember.”

“I’m not actually that old, Widow.” 

Natasha smirked. Brock Rumlow, the man briefing them both, cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” Cosima said, not even trying to sound repentant.

“The man in charge,” Rumlow continued, nearly managing to hide his annoyance, “Is this man--Georges Batroc. Ex-DGSE, action division. He’s at the top of Interpol’s Red Notice. 36 kill missions before the French decommissioned him. His M.O. is maximum casualties.” 

Cosima stood straighter, the joking air gone. “How many are on board the ship?”

“25 pirates,” Rumlow said, and Cosima sucked in a breath. He pressed another button and the faces of various SHIELD workers began filling the screen. “Hostages are mainly techs, one officer. Jasper Sitwell.” 

“It’s SHIELD’s, then?” Cosima asked, and Rumlow nodded. “Then what the hell were they doing, sending their ship into pirate-infested waters?” She shifted where she stood, her voice still biting. “What was this ship doing?”

“Need to know only, Captain. Batroc doesn’t want anything specific to the ship or SHIELD, anyway,” he continued when Cosima opened her mouth to object. “Just a billion and a half dollars.”

“Basically nothing,” Cosima muttered sarcastically.

“From what we can see and based on the ship’s layout, we think Batroc’s keeping the hostages here.” The faces disappeared, replaced with a large ship blueprint. A large room in the center of the image lit up red. “The galley.”

“Okay,” Cosima said, putting her helmet on and snapping it into place. “Nat, kill the engines, and Rumlow, you and your…” she gestured over to the STRIKE team standing nearby. “munchkins get the hostages to the life pods and out safely.” 

“You heard the Captain,” Rumlow said, turning to face his team. “Let’s get prepped to move out!” 

Cosima fiddled with the communicator on her wrist before speaking into it. “Secure channel seven.”

“Channel seven secure,” Natasha said, coming up next to Cosima as they both stood in front of the doors. The plane itself continued slicing through the air, quickly approaching the ship. “Careful with your manicure. Krystal isn’t going to be very happy if you chip it the day after you’ve gotten it. For free, even.”

“How did you even meet Krystal? She doesn’t exactly seem like the type to hang around SHIELD.” 

Natasha shrugged. “Good place to practice a cover. You think you’re gonna get another manicure from her?” 

“Are you…” Cosima squinted at the redhead. “Are you trying to set me up with her?”

“She’s very flexible.”

“I..in what--”

“Coming up on the drop zone!”

Cosima pounded the button next to the door and the hatch whirred open. The wind rushed in to meet her instantly, bitterly cold and roaring. Below, the SHIELD-owned and pirate-occupied ship moved through the dark water, practically glowing with the lights on deck.

Cosima rolled her shoulders, felt her shield’s weight familiar on her back, and jumped.

“Was she…” A junior member of the STRIKE team stepped forward, squinting into the wind. “Was she wearing a parachute?”

Rumlow laughed. “No. No she wasn’t.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima tucked her arms in and pointed her toes, the wind screaming in her ears. The water rushed up to meet her, and she had an instant to close her eyes before she was slicing through the water and the water was slicing through her, bitterly cold.

Her suit wasn’t much of a match for freezing ocean water in March.

Her hands started to shake in her gloves and she sank her teeth into her lip until she tasted coppery blood in addition to saltwater, spreading her arms to slow her descent through the water.

_Don’t be stupid. This isn’t anything like the last time. There are people on that ship relying on you._

_Keep it together._

She swam upward, squinting through the water at the dark belly of the ship above. It felt like a lifetime before her head broke the surface and she gasped, one hand reaching out and grabbing onto the bottom rung of a ladder on the ship’s side. As silently as she could, she climbed up, the water running in rivulets off her back.

She could still smell the salt, feel the cold, taste the blood, and she stopped to shake her head like she was trying to get water out of her ears.

_Keep it together._

She swung herself over the side of the ship and planted her feet, wincing at the sound of her boots on the metal. When no pirates came running to confront her, she grabbed her shield off her back and crept forward.

“Guess I’ll have to come find you myself, then.”

Pressing herself into the side of a storage container, Cosima snuck along the deck, her shield held in front of her chest and her boots leaving wet smudges on the floor. Slowly, holding her breath, she stuck her head out around the corner.

The pirate didn’t stand a chance. She caught her shield and started running before he even hit the ground.

“Love these new magnetic bracelets,” she whispered to herself as she darted across an open space for the stairs, jogging up to the upper level of the ship’s deck. Her feet pounded a bit too loudly when she ran--at least, that was the best explanation for how someone managed to get behind he and grab her shoulder.

Cosima brought her elbow back, and heard a very satisfying crunch and snap before the pirate behind her crumpled to the ground.

“Thank you, Peggy,” she muttered, having seen the elbow move used by the SSR agent plenty of times while sparring before ever having the chance to do it herself. Of the few actual things she had from the 1940s, the fighting style was definitely one of the most valuable. 

A level below, the dark shapes of other pirates darted like shadows along the deck. Cosima placed on hand solidly on the railing and leaned back before vaulting herself over, not bothering with subtlety or stealth.

The look on the pirates’ faces was worth it.

They reached for their guns at the same time and Cosima dropped into a crouch, one leg swinging out to trip the pirate closer to her while she threw her shield in the opposite direction, rebounding off the head of the other pirate before returning to her arm.

The tripped pirate groaned, and she kicked his gun away before knocking him out.

“And here I thought you guys were going to be tough,” she sighed, whirling and landing a solid kick to the chest of another pirate who’d been running at her.

_“Ne bougez pas!”_

A gun clicked behind her head and Cosima stiffened, hands clenching into fists.

_“Ne bou--”_

The pirate groaned and his gun clattered loudly to the ground. Next to her, Rumlow landed on the ground, his parachute falling over the collapsed pirate. 

“Thanks,” she told him, shooting Natasha a grin as the redhead landed silently on the deck. Around them, members of the STRIKE team fell on the ship like large, loud snowflakes.

“Yeah,” Rumlow snorted, unclipping his parachute and not bothering to move it off the pirate. “You sure looked helpless before I got here.”

“I was being polite,” Cosima smirked, and Rumlow snorted again, sounding less friendly this time.

Natasha shrugged off her parachute harness and strode over to the nearest staircase. “Just a warning, Cap, this ship’s powered by something called diesel, not steam.”

“I’m not that old--you know what?” Cosima said in response to Natasha’s smirk. “Just go secure the engine room.”

“Surprised you know what an engine is,” Natasha tossed over her shoulder as she jumped over the railing and disappeared below deck.

Cosima shook her head before swinging her shield onto her back and jogging along the deck, leaving the STRIKE operatives to take care of the stray pirates on the deck while she got a better feel for the ship’s layout.

Even though she was on the main deck of the ship, SHIELD never did anything simply, so there were several stories of ship looming above her--smaller than the main deck, but also more fortified. 

And of course, the galley full of hostages--and Batroc, most likely--was halfway up.

There was a set of stairs leading to the different floors, zig-zagging up along the plain grey walls. Cosima bit her lip, trying to calculate how long it’d been since the ship had been taken. It had to be near two hours at this point, and Batroc, according to the files at least, was not known for his patience. 

She took three long strides backwards before charging forward, her feet pounding up the stairs and then she had one foot on the railing and then she was jumping off it, the momentum sending her through the air until her hands closed around the railings of the next landing up and she swung herself over.

The room full of hostages was still another story above her. Cosima reached into her pocket and pulled out a metal device and aimed it at the window, squinting through the chill air before firing. 

A tiny black circle, equipped with a microphone, shot out of the Stark-designed pseudo-gun and stuck solidly on the window. Cosima pressed a finger to her earpiece, and French words began to filter through.

“Oh, come on,” she groaned to herself, bitterly but not loud enough to drown out the words. “I have some really good memories surrounding French, don’t do this.”

_“Call Durand,”_ one man snarled, _“I want this ship ready to move when the ransom comes.”_

Around her, silent and in the shadows, she knew the STRIKE team was moving into position. Cosima slowly pulled herself into a better position, in a crouch with her back pressed to the wall. 

_“In two minutes, we start shooting.”_

“Shit,” she hissed, fumbling with her wrist communicator before raising it, nearly missing the STRIKE team leader’s report that they were in position. “Nat, what’s your status?” When she didn’t respond, Cosima tried again, halfway to climbing the walls and breaking into the room herself. “Natasha, status--”

_“Hold on!”_ She sounded more exasperated than actually distressed, so Cosima stayed where she was, half-listening to the pirates arguing in the room above her. The pirates had harsh voices, snarling and snapping at each other like dogs, spitting the words at each other or the hostages. Cosima wanted to rip out her earpiece or at least mute it. 

They were doing a disservice to the language, in her opinion. She didn’t want to hear their voices butchering it.

There was only one person she wanted to hear, honey voice and honey curls, whispering French into her ear.

Two years plus the 70 she’d spent sleeping, and the thought of Delphine still felt like a stab to the gut, like drowning, and Cosima sucked in a long breath of cold air, thinking of the hostages, the ship’s layout, translating the dialogue, anything--

_“Engine room secure.”_

“About damn time,” Cosima snapped, switching over to the line they shared with the rest of the STRIKE team before Natasha could respond. “On my mark. Three...two…” She took a deep breath, feeling that familiar rush of adrenaline in her blood. “One.”

Gunshots peppered the air and inside the room, several of the pirate leaders fell to the ground before even realizing they’d been shot. Half a heartbeat later, the windows exploded, shards of shrapnel pattering against Cosima’s helmet. STRIKE operatives poured through the windows.

“I told you,” someone--Sitwell?--said dryly. “SHIELD doesn’t negotiate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cosima gets some action this chapter! I hope you enjoyed it, and as always, thanks so much for reading and to my beta, Noelle, and to Chaya (therenegadegabbai on tumblr). Had any of you been missing, this never would've happened :)
> 
> A question for you guys--would you be interested in the "playlist," or the list of songs I used while writing _America's New Hope_? I have no idea how 8tracks works, but I could always post the tracklist on my tumblr. Speaking of, my tumblr has moved, I'm now at letsbeasymphony! I am literally always excited to talk about writing, Delphine Cormier, or anything really, so let me know your thoughts, either here or in the comments!
> 
> Have a lovely week, see you soon! <3


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Marvel-typical violence, some swearing, discussion of death and mourning.

Cosima allowed herself a smirk before jumping off the landing she’d been crouched on and sprinting across the deck. The hostages were no longer in immediate danger, but that could change any second with all the pirates still in the field.

She aimed to fix that.

It was almost depressingly easy to find Batroc. The man was certainly not subtle, having chosen the fanciest and most phallic-looking room on deck to be his command center. Cosima slunk along the deck, nearly flat against the ground to avoid the glint off her shield being spotted through the windows. 

It wouldn’t be long before someone in there realized how suspicious it was that they hadn’t heard from either the engine workers or the hostage guards. She had to make some sort of distraction.

She threw her shield through the window.

The pirates yelled and scattered like startled birds, Batroc among them as Cosima hurled herself after her shield, kicking aside a few of the larger shards of glass that remained in the window frame before jumping into the room. One of the few men who hadn’t made it to the door flung himself to the ground.

“Hi.” Cosima waved.

The man screamed and reached for his gun but she was there first, stomping on his hand until he dropped the gun and then knocking him out for good measure. Behind her a metal door slammed shut as the second straggler ran for it.

Cosima sighed in frustration as she ran over to where her shield was embedded in a metal wall. Wrenching it free, she started chasing the second man before Rumlow’s voice in her comm interrupted her.

_“Hostages en route to extraction,”_ he said, and paused. _“Romanoff missed the rendezvous point, Cap. Hostiles still in play.”_

“Shit,” Cosima groaned before raising her comm to her lips again, switching back to the line that she and Natasha shared. “Nat, I lost Batroc. You need to circle back to Rumlow and protect the hostages. I can handle the others, okay? Nat--” 

A strangled grunt was all the warning she had before Batroc was flinging himself at her. 

_“Fuck!”_ she gasped instinctively as she brought her shield up, Batroc’s foot hitting it with a massive clang. 

He landed on his feet. Cosima wasn’t so lucky, falling heavily on her back and rolling over until she was on her feet again, just in time to block another kick and stumble backward.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Batroc step backward and she dropped to the ground deliberately. Batroc’s kick sailed over her and she twisted around, his foot landing an inch from her ankle.

He glanced up and met her eyes with a confident half-smile. Cosima glared.

She snatched her leg back and threw up her arm to block a kick from Batroc. She hopped up into a crouch before lunging forward, her shield grazing Batroc’s neck as he danced backward. He lunged next, Cosima parrying his punches with her shield and arm. She was so focused on his arms that she didn’t see his kick coming until it connected with her chest.

She grunted and fell back, and thought she heard Batroc snort. Gritting her teeth, she rolled with the momentum and ended up in a crouch, waiting. 

Half a second later Batroc swung at her head as she expected and Cosima ducked underneath his arm so she was only separated from him by a hair’s-length--the top of her head brushed his chin.

She brought her knee up hard, and Batroc made a faint noise between a squeak and a wheeze. Cosima hopped backward before landing a solid blow to his side.

Batroc fell, but recovered with a series of frankly unnecessary flips backward. Cosima shifted her grip on her shield, eyes not leaving Batroc. He shifted into a fighting stance, a confident gleam still in his eye.

_“I thought you were more than just a shield,”_ he half-growled, the French words gravelly.

Cosima rolled her eyes. “I do not have time for your hyper-masculine bullshit.” She saw him frown as he tried to translate the sentence, but she didn’t wait, drawing her arm back and letting the shield fly with impressive force, catching it on the rebound.

Batroc slid several feet across the deck, but still pulled himself slowly to his feet, staggering. Cosima shook her head and ran at him, grabbing his shirt just as he managed to draw himself up and shoving him into a nearby wall.

The wall gave way and they both fell through, Cosima on top of the now-unconscious Batroc.

“Well, this is awkward.” 

The voice was so out of place that it took Cosima a minute to place. A few feet away, Natasha casually bent over as she typed on one of the ship’s computers. 

“Natasha?” 

“Very good,” Natasha replied dryly, typing quickly and no longer even looking at Cosima. “Your eyes weren’t injured.” 

Cosima scrambled off Batroc, eyes flashing. “What the _hell_ are you doing?”

“Backing up the hard drive,” Natasha said casually, still focused on the screen. “It’s a good habit to get into, you know.” 

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Cosima snapped, striding over to the computers. “There are still hostages on board--Rumlow’s out there protecting them, he needed--” She trailed off as she got close to the monitor, watching names and data stream across the screen. “That’s SHIELD intel. You’re saving SHIELD intel.” 

“Whatever I can get.” 

“We are here to _save people--”_

“No, that’s you. The big hero of this piece, and you’ve done it beautifully,” Natasha promised, the sarcasm practically dripping. She tapped a few keys decisively before snagging a flash drive out of the computer’s side. “Now--”

Cosima stepped in front of her as Natasha started for the door. Blazing green eyes clashed against Cosima’s fiery hazel as she took a half step forward. Natasha stood her ground, meeting Cosima’s gaze unflinchingly. 

“There are people that could die--they’re all in danger because of you.”

Natasha’s look turned scathing. “I think that’s overstating things.” 

Cosima saw Natasha’s eyes turn from scornful to focused on something behind them both and she whirled around, barely in time to catch a glimpse of a stray pirate running from the room. The man threw something and Cosima reacted automatically, bringing her shield up to protect both of them. 

The object was small, oblong, and Cosima didn’t need to see the flashing red lights on its end or the way the pirate ran from the room to know this was not good.

70 years later, and explosives were still shaped basically the same.

She jerked her arm sharply, hitting the grenade over to the far corner of the room, and Natasha darted forward and wrapped her arm around Cosima’s shoulders. Jumping on top of the row of tables, Cosima held onto Natasha’s waist with one arm and raised her shield with the other, part of her already anticipating the blast as she ran. 

She heard Natasha fire and saw the window in front of them buckle, the bullets bouncing off the glass. Natasha ducked her head, Cosima brought the shield in front of them both, and, before she could think, charged.

The blast seared into her back, and Cosima felt Natasha slip out from underneath her arm as they were both hurled forward. Skidding over broken glass and with ash in her mouth, Cosima forced herself into a crouch and half-crawled over to the still-intact wall, Natasha doing the same beside her. 

They slumped against the wall, the only sounds gasping and the ringing in their ears. 

“Okay,” Natasha panted, wincing. “That one’s on me.”

“Oh, you think?” Cosima pulled herself up and headed for the nearest door. The ringing faded from her ears in moments and she fumbled for her earpiece, managing to flick it on while Rumlow was mid-rant.

_“--ports of an explosion, Cap, come in--”_

“Widow and I are fine,” she said, cutting him off. “I need a report on those hostages.”

_“All evacuated, we’re just waiting on you two.”_

Cosima sighed, some tiny bit of tension leaking out of her shoulders. “All the hostiles taken care of?”

_“Including the one that got the drop on you two.”_

“We’ll be at the rendezvous in five,” she told him, not needing to look around to know that Natasha was near enough to hear.

_“Need a med evac?”_

Cosima glanced behind her. Natasha had an arm pressed to her side and was covered in soot, but her steps were steady and her face as passive as ever. There wasn’t a hint of anything like guilt in her eyes.

“No,” Cosima told Rumlow darkly. “But Fury might.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What, were you planning on telling me before we left but it just slipped your mind?”

“Stop acting like I slept with your girlfriend, Captain,” Fury replied, a hint of annoyance slipping into his voice. “Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours.”

“And you didn’t bother telling me.” 

SHIELD director Nick Fury sighed once, turning in his chair to face the fuming super-soldier on the other side of the desk. Cosima was still in uniform, though wearing her glasses and with her hair returned to its customary high ponytail, and she was bristling.

“My battle plans used her. Half of them centered around her, but she was unavailable because she was running errands for you.” 

“Saving essential SHIELD data--”

“You want to talk about data?” Cosima fired back, seeming to have forgotten completely that she was talking to one of the most powerful people in the world. “I thought I could trust Nat and use her skills. How am I supposed to fight your battles if I don’t have all the data?” 

“You’re supposed to adapt, Captain.” Fury leaned forward, resting his weight on the desk. “The way soldiers do.” 

Cosima looked away, even as her stance remained square-shouldered and defiant. “I’m not a soldier.” 

“No?” 

“No,” she snapped, eyes flashing as they met Fury’s single one again. “I--” 

She trailed off, folding her arms and sounding almost petulant as she continued. “Even if I was, soldiers still need to trust each other.” 

“The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye.” 

“I’d say that guy did you a favor.” 

Fury stood slowly, shutting his eye and reigning his emotions back in before speaking. “Look, these missions sometimes require things that someone like you would not be comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything.” 

“So I’m supposed to lead troops into battle, but never know when a few of them might just run off to do their own thing.”

“It’s called compartmentalization--” 

“I know. I _did_ work on classified projects back in the 40’s,” Cosima said, drawing herself up to her full height as she spoke. “You know something? Compartmentalization slowed us the hell down then, and I’ll bet they didn’t improve it much while I was sleeping.”

Fury spoke again, hiding his exasperation less effectively now. “If nobody knows all the secrets--” 

“Except for you.” 

“Which would make me rather like you were in 1940’s in your metaphor, wouldn’t it?” 

Cosima fell silent at that, jaw clenched as she refused to be the first to look away. Fury paused and shook his head, almost invisibly, and straightened up.

“Besides, you’re wrong about me, Captain. I do share.” He stepped out from behind the desk and strode over to a nearby elevator. Cosima followed after a moment’s hesitation, slipping through the elevator doors behind him.

“Insight bay.” 

A cool electronic voice interrupted them, feminine and emotionless. _“Captain Sadler does not have clearance for Project Insight.”_

“Director override,” Fury said, while Cosima did her best to hide her interest. “Fury, Nicholas J.” 

_“Confirmed.”_

The elevator smoothly whirred into motion and Cosima glanced out the glass walls, still in love with the view of the world around them that they provided. It was a long way from her rooftop in Brooklyn, looking around at the brick apartment buildings and, if she was lucky, the stars.

“You know,” Fury commented, waiting for Cosima to turn around before he continued. “My grandfather worked one of these for 40 years. Granddad worked in a nice building--got nice tips. He’d walk home every day with a roll of ones in his lunchbag.” 

Cosima nodded, leaning against the elevator railing. 

“He’d say ‘hi,’ they’d say ‘hi’ back, and then times changed. The neighborhood got rougher. He’d say ‘hi,’ and they’d say ‘keep on steppin’.” He shook his head, and Cosima snorted. “Granddad started gripping that lunchbag a little tighter.”

“What happened? Did he get mugged?”

“Not exactly. They tried,” Fury said with a shrug. “Every week, some punk would say ‘What’s in the bag?’ And he’d go ahead and show them. Just a roll of ones...and a loaded .22 Magnum.” Cosima blinked, and Fury folded his arms. “Granddad loved people, but he didn’t trust them very much.”

Cosima sighed, letting her eyes slide past Fury and back out the window. “I just can’t live like that.”

The elevator doors slid open, and Cosima gaped.

“Yeah, I know. They’re a little bit bigger than a .22.” 

She stepped out of the elevator and past Fury, craning her neck as she stared.

“What is this?” 

“This,” Fury said, walking up behind Cosima. “Is Project Insight.” 

Above them loomed a hangar immense enough that Cosima couldn’t see either the end or the ceiling--though that may have also been because of the impossibly large ships lined up in front of them.

“Helicarriers?” Cosima half-whispered, her footsteps echoing. 

“Three next-generation helicarriers,” Fury corrected. “They’re synced to a network of targeting satellites. They’ll be launched from the Lemurian Star, and they’ll never need to come down. Continuous sub-orbital flight,” he said, already anticipating Cosima’s question. “Thanks to the new repulsor engines.” 

“Oh, well that’s got Tony Stark written all over it,” Cosima snorted. She couldn’t make it all the way around the craft--or even see the entirety of it--but she was trying, one hand raised to try and trace the shape. “These are beautiful--what are those?” 

“Those?” Fury asked, gesturing at the long thin turrets on the top and sides. “New long-range precision guns--they can eliminate 1,000 hostiles a minute.” Cosima pulled her hand back. “These satellites can read a terrorist’s DNA before he even steps outside his spider hole. We’re gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen.” 

Cosima stared, her shoulders pulling back into a military posture. “You’re executing people before the trial--before the _crime?”_

“We can’t afford to wait that long.” 

“We?” 

Fury turned and began striding away from the carriers, Cosima following in his wake. “After the Battle of Manhattan, I convinced the World Security Council that we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once, we’re way ahead of the curve.” 

“This isn’t what you _needed,”_ Cosima scoffed, gesturing behind her at the helicarriers. “You’re going to what, hold the entire world hostage? How are you even getting the information--” 

“The internet, Captain.” He raised a single eyebrow. “Surely you didn’t expect people to give it freely.”

“I didn’t expect you to just take it _without consent--”_

“Honestly, Captain, you need to grow up.” The SHIELD director was as close to snapping as Cosima--or anyone--had ever heard, and she fell silent on instinct. “You’re not a child or an innocent here. I’ve read all the SSR files, including yours. Your ‘Greatest Generation’ did some pretty nasty stuff.” 

“We were doing our best so people could live free and make their own choices,” Cosima shot back, “not so the generation after us could turn around and do _this.”_

“I heard that by the end of the war, all Doctor Cormier had to do was walk into an interrogation room and the captured agent would be spilling all of HYDRA’s secrets.”

_“Don’t,”_ Cosima hissed, fists clenching. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

Fury stopped for a barely imperceptible moment, his single eye blinking. 

“She did-- _we_ did what we had to do. So people could live their lives the way they wanted to. This--this is just fear.” 

“SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we’d like it to be,” Fury said, slow and deadly. “It’s getting damn near past time for you to get with that programme.” 

“Yeah,” Cosima snorted, deliberately dropping the military posture. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima bit her lip, not noticing she’d drawn blood until she tasted copper.

She was sitting on a bench in the National Mall, sweatshirt hood pulled up over the hat that was obscuring her face. Between her hands she kept flipping through a brochure, the folds in it almost worn to tearing by how often she’d been opening and closing it.

_CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE EXHIBIT. SEE IT EXCLUSIVELY AT THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY._

The brochure had been slipped under her door in a typical Natasha style--at least, she’d assumed it was Natasha. Clint was overseas on a deep-cover mission, Tony Stark was probably unaware of anything happening outside his workshop, much less outside New York, Bruce was working with Tony, and Thor was offworld. Nobody but SHIELD knew she was living in DC, so if it wasn’t Natasha--

She decided it was Natasha.

The exhibit was in its closing days, and she’d been holding onto the brochure for weeks. She’d memorized it at this point, everything from the ticket prices to the captions under the pictures. The museum was a three minute walk away--less, really, for her.

She couldn’t make herself move.

She wanted to go. Not to preen over all she’d done or boast, as Felix surely would’ve accused her of, but she _wanted._

When she was a kid, she would’ve given her left arm for a chance to go to the Smithsonian--in fact, she’d tried. Constantly negotiating with her dad-- _but what if I do all the chores for a month, but what if I do them all for a year, what if I sell all my books an’ my hair an’ my arm can we go then_ \--and never quite understanding the idea of not having enough time to travel from California to D.C..

Then he’d died, and she’d never quite had the strength to broach the topic with her mother. Not before she’d walked in on Cosima and that girl--what was her name? Angie? She’d be dead now anyway, they all were--and thrown Cosima out, her secret museum funds suddenly needed to pay for food and clothes.

She could do it now. She could walk through those doors, the cost of a ticket practically nothing given all that SHIELD was paying her, and see it all. 

She could do it.

She couldn’t move.

Because through those doors was an exhibit dedicated to her and her friends--her men--her Howling Commandos and everything they were, everything they’d done. The pictures and video that were sent back home to be analyzed or shown before the pictures. 

She wanted to see them so much that it _ached._ She wanted to see Dum-Dum Dugan and his big stupid grin, Monty and Morita bickering in the background, Gabe snickering, Delphine and Jacques making their own private jokes in French and refusing to let anyone in on them.

She wanted to go see them. She wanted and wanted and--

She couldn’t.

The brochure twisted and tore almost silently in her hands and she cursed, dropping it in her haste to stop herself from destroying it entirely.

“Almost don’t recognize you when you’re not moving.” 

Cosima blinked, still reaching for the brochure. Sam Wilson huffed and crossed his arms, clearly having stopped in the middle of a run.

“C’mon, I figured that since I overslept I’d be able to take a run without the humiliation, but I think you just sitting there while I run laps is worse.” 

Unable to avoid rising to the bait, Cosima straightened up and smirked. “Who knows, with an hour-long head start, you might’ve stood a chance against me.”

“Yeah, well, maybe tomorrow.” Sam glanced down at the brochure Cosima had grabbed off the ground. “You thinking of going to the exhibit?”

“Oh, I…” Cosima tucked the paper into her hoodie’s pocket. “I don’t know. I was kinda there for most of it.” 

Sam smiled at the joke, but there was enough understanding in his eyes to make Cosima look away. “Hard to face the memories alone, right?”

She shook her head. “You have no idea.”

“Well, I might.” Sam leaned back for a moment, arms loosely crossed over his chest, then took a few steps down the path. “C’mon. I was going to head down to the museum later anyway.”

“You don’t have to--” 

“I know.” He grinned, jerking his head as he tried to goad Cosima into following. “You know, if you don’t get a move on, I’m gonna beat you.” 

Cosima smiled, her eyeteeth glinting. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the end of another chapter! As always, a massive, massive thank you to the people who made this possible--Noelle and Chaya (therenegadegabbai on tumblr). It wouldn't exist without you!
> 
> My muse has been finicky with this story lately, so I hope you enjoyed it! Comments are always welcome and criticism is always encouraged! I'm on tumblr at elizaskylers (...yes I did change my url again, haha), and always taking prompts or just eager to say hi!


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: mentions and discussions of death and war, lots of grief and mourning, discussion of sex, dementia.

The moment they walked up to the actual exhibit, the rest of the world fell away.

Painted across the entryway in bold colors was Cosima, larger than life with her hair tied up and her black cateye glasses perched on her nose. Even though only the top half of her body was shown it looked as though she’d been caught mid-stride, half-turned to look over her shoulder at a friend. A few loose strands of hair were caught in an imaginary wind, framing her face and guiding the viewer’s eyes to laughing brown eyes and a wide grin, cheeky even when painted. It looked like a portrait of a young woman as she dashed to the beach or out with friends, if it wasn’t for the round shield visible on her back, and the red, white, and blue she was wearing.

 _Captain America: Living Legend,_ read the text on the other wall, its background the American flag.

“Woah,” Cosima breathed, half-laughing in disbelief as a group of tourists took selfies in front of the massive portrait. “This is--this is Steve, isn’t it? I’m not in a tiny skirt or saluting, this _has_ to be Steve.” 

Sam walked into the actual exhibit ahead of her and she followed after a few moments. He was staring at a small plaque on the wall, mostly ignored by the other passerby.

“You were right,” he said when she came up to him. “Says here all the art in this exhibit that’s a painting or sketch was done by a Steve Rogers, a sickly artist who applied for the military four times, rejected each time. He ended up making and selling art to support the war effort, eventually becoming an official war artist courtesy of the SSR. There’s a picture,” he added, gesturing.

Cosima stepped forward and almost stumbled. _Steve Rogers._ She’d recognized his art the moment she’d seen it, known the name before Sam even said it, but this was something more than that.

This was the same picture Delphine had shown Cosima, all those years ago, stolen from one of the SSR’s files. 

She could still see it, a little less yellowed than it was now, held between Delphine’s fingers. The antiseptic on the oxygen mask sharp in her nose, Delphine’s rosewater perfume making it bearable, the two of them on the hospital bed together, not even a hair’s breadth apart.

Delphine whispering _I could save you._

Cosima replying _Save me._

“Cosima?” Sam was staring at her, she realized, a moment too late. “You okay?”

“Fine.” She read the plaque for herself--he’d died in 1945, just after the war’s end. A pneumonia he just couldn’t shake.

_If he’d had the serum like he was supposed to, maybe--_

“You wanna go?” 

“No,” she said, shaking her head for good measure. “No, I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” 

Cosima stepped back from the plaque, feeling considerably heavier than when she’d first walked into the exhibit, and moved forward. Sam fell a few steps behind her, the near-stranger’s presence a strange comfort in the back of Cosima’s mind.

Steve’s art was everywhere, bright canvases offsetting the black and white photographs in the exhibits. There was Dum-Dum and Jones, with Frenchie in the background looking perfectly exasperated. There was Morita, and Barnes--looking considerably more Greek-god like than she remembered him, but she wasn’t about to criticize Steve’s artistic choices.

On a nearby screen, there was a soundless black and white video playing.

“This is so surreal,” Cosima muttered, watching the video loop. It was one of the films she’d done in the early days of being Captain America, scandalously wearing slacks that resembled the men’s uniform and cheering as a group of actor-soldiers charged over the hill. She remembered that day, the costume they’d had her in combining with the heat to practically roast her. Originally Captain America had lines in the short--literary gold such as “Go get ‘em, boys!” and “Give those nasty Germans what they deserve!”. Cosima had delivered the lines in an expressionless monotone until the director had given up and just told her to smile and wave.

Delphine had doubled over laughing just outside the camera frame. Cosima could still hear her if she tried.

“You think this is surreal?” Sam snorted. “Try watching it with Captain America.” He shook his head. “Man, I think we watched this clip in history class.”

Cosima stayed silent, watching herself wave and jump on antique film before determinedly turning away.

And coming face to face with Delphine Cormier.

“That punk,” she whispered, eyes stinging. “That little punk.”

The portrait had been expanded to just slightly larger than life, only Delphine’s upper body visible to the viewer. The angle made it seem as if Delphine was sitting at the viewer’s bedside, leaning forward. Soft white light illuminated her from behind and filtered through her spun-gold curls, her eyes brandy-warm and shining. She was dressed in white with a comforting smile and it wouldn’t have been surprising to see white wings coming from her back.

Cosima dimly remembered a battlefield in France, when Steve had challenged her to describe how she saw Delphine, since all he could see was the woman who’d snatched the super-serum out from under his nose.

The portrait was titled _Delphine Cormier Through the Eyes of Another._

Another video player sprung to life, a sepia photograph of Delphine in one of Stark’s labs filling the screen.

 _“Doctor Delphine Esther Cormier was a scientist from Lille, France,”_ a male narrator droned, the picture fading out to be replaced by the image of a man in his 40s with curls like Delphine’s. _“She was the eldest child and only daughter of renowned physician and researcher Leon Cormier, known to his close friends as Aryeh Lev. An intensely private woman, not much is known about her early life. It is believed she was the only survivor after the Cormier home caught fire during the Siege of Lille._

 _It was a few years after that siege that Doctor Cormier transferred onto the project for which she would become famous--Project Rebirth.”_ The pictures faded again, replaced with images of the labs they’d worked in together, and of course, Howard Stark. _“It was here that she would meet Captain Sadler--then just Cosima Sadler, another researcher--and, when her fellow scientist’s life was in danger, accelerate the project and give the trial version of the serum to Doctor Sadler, transforming her into the soldier we know today.”_

“They sure as hell weren’t being that nice about her at the time,” Cosima snorted, but the pictures faded out to old video footage, and it took her breath away.

It was footage from one of the most ordinary days, the two of them a few feet away from the other Commandos, heads bent close in conversation. Cosima couldn’t even remember the day or the country, much less what they’d been talking about, but both leaning in as if pulled toward each other, not holding each other, not even touching, but the moment had an air of intimacy nonetheless.

Cosima was in her uniform, hair pulled into a high ponytail, and Delphine in hers, blonde curls twisted and tucked against the base of her neck, no barrier between their faces and the camera. Cosima could see every glance between them, every time one of their eyes would flick to the other’s lips, the longing and happiness etched into their faces.

Black-and-white Cosima said something inaudible, her lips twisting into a smirk that Cosima, as she watched, both recognized and couldn’t recreate. Delphine’s eyes crinkled in an achingly familiar way that Cosima had forgotten, and then Delphine _laughed,_ sparkling and embarrassed and happy and full of life, and Cosima couldn’t breathe.

_“Though all of the Howling Commandos survived the war, Doctor Cormier did not live to see peacetime’s true effects. Devoted to bringing Captain Sadler home, she went missing on an expedition while searching for the Captain’s crashed plane._

_She was the only Howling Commando to give her life in direct service to Captain Sadler.”_

“You okay?”

Sam’s voice felt out of place and it took Cosima a moment to orient herself, Delphine’s laughing face fading out slowly before the video began again. She rubbed at her eyes with her sleeve, trying not to let him see her red-rimmed eyes, and smiled.

“You two were pretty good friends, huh?”

Cosima stared blankly at Sam. He gestured toward the written part of the exhibit. The largest photo was of Cosima and Delphine returning to camp after the 107th’s liberation from the Hydra camp in Italy, Delphine and Cosima’s hands entwined so tightly that it was near-impossible to tell where one hand ended and the other began.

 _Doctor Cormier and Captain Sadler were incredibly, undeniably, close. Not only did the doctor risk the Super-Soldier project, her job, and her freedom by procuring trial serum to save Captain Sadler’s life, but she then joined the Howling Commandos as a sniper and field medic, becoming one of the most notable Allied female soldiers of the time (another, of course, being friend of Captain Sadler, Agent Margaret Carter),_ read the caption.

_The friendship between these two women is one that will go down in history._

“What.”

“Something wrong?” Sam asked, frowning.

“Yeah,” Cosima said, still dumbfounded. “We had sex.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to stare blankly at her.

“We fucked,” Cosima clarified, ignoring the scandalized look she got from a passing woman. “Delphine and I. A lot.”

“Okay--”

“This was not a platonic relationship,” she continued, building steam. “Once we figured out how to work around her triggers, we had sex all the damn time. _So much sex.”_

“Okay, Cosima--”

“On two continents. Three countries. At least.” 

A few parents began quickly leading their children away, tossing Cosima glares as they rushed off. Sam’s hands were held up placatingly, though the effect was rather ruined by the way his entire body was shaking with the effort to hold in his laughter.

“Four countries, actually, I think we were technically in Austria that one time--”

“Cosima--” 

“Do you want to know what happened in Austria? _Do you want to know where these fingers--”_

“We’re leaving,” Sam said to a red faced woman who looked ready to explode. His hand quickly covered Cosima’s mouth as he pushed her toward the door. “We’re leaving, we’re gone.”

Cosima grabbed Sam’s wrist and forced his hand down. “This is totally inaccurate--”

“Bye.” Sam shoved Cosima out the door. It slammed behind them, and he stared at Cosima for a long, silent moment.

A very unmanly _pfft_ sound escaped his lips, and then he was bent double at the waist, laughing hard enough that Cosima started to worry about his ribs.

“This isn’t that funny,” she said flatly. Sam ignored her. “There is a historical inaccuracy in the Smithsonian. Don’t you care about that?”

“Did you see that lady’s face?” Sam wheezed.

Cosima bit her cheek to stop the smirk pulling at her lips. “Which one?”

And then they both lost it, laughing with tears leaking from their eyes and clinging to each other to stay upright.

“Why did you stop me?” she gasped once they’d both calmed down some, still giggling. “I didn’t even get to France, their _faces_ if I’d even started on what happened in France--”

“Cosima,” Sam said, his hand landing heavily on her shoulder. “I don’t know how much research about this century you’ve been doing, but Captain America shouting about being a lesbian in the middle of a museum could still lead to some issues.”

“Shit, right,” Cosima groaned. “Do you think that anyone recognized me?”

“High ponytails and black glasses are pretty popular among the crowd who came to see your exhibit. You should be alright.”

“I have an exhibit.” Cosima shook her head. “God, this century is surreal.”

“You should see the children’s books.”

“Oh God--”

“And the _movies.”_

Cosima groaned again, ignoring Sam’s chuckles, before turning to face him fully again.

“What do you think?” she challenged, spreading her arms. “Does Captain America live up to the hype, the queer, impulsive scientist that she is?”

“I don’t know about Captain America,” Sam said, “but Cosima Sadler? I’d say she exceeds it.”

Cosima blinked, not sure what to do with the sudden burst of gratitude and warmth in her chest that was bringing tears to her eyes. She glanced down and away, then snorted and gently shoved Sam’s upper arm with her shoulder.

“Did you know that I’m actually German?”

“Are you just gonna ruin all my childhood dreams, or…?”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Maybe this was a bad idea,_ Cosima thought, worrying the stems of the red tulips between her hands as she stood in the doorway. _This is probably super-unhealthy. A psychiatrist could probably write half a book--_

“She’s ready to see you now, darlin,’” one of the nurses drawled, smiling far too brightly for someone who worked in a hospice. Cosima smiled back, more like pulling her lips tight over her teeth than anything, and the nurse gave her a surprisingly understanding smile. “She’s havin’ a real good day today, don’t worry.”

Cosima nodded, hoping she looked a little less stiff, and walked past the nurse into the room.

“Hey, Peggy.”

“Cosima.” Peggy smiled warmly from where she was laying in bed, raising her arms in welcome.

Cosima never would get used to seeing Peggy like this. The hospice rooms were white and clean, gauzy curtains just barely hiding a garden full of flowers. There were nurse call buttons always within reach, and the nurse’s station just down the hall behind a mahogany desk covered in plants.

It was a beautiful place.

And Peggy was still beautiful.

Wavy white hair rested on her shoulders, her hands were wrinkled and skin paper-thin but still warm as she took the flowers from Cosima.

“They’re lovely,” Peggy said, settling back into her pillows, and Cosima couldn’t help smiling at the crisp British accent that remained after all this time.

“Like a certain dame,” she smirked, and Peggy levelled a chastising glare at her through the tulip blooms.

“Still a flirt, Captain?”

“Incorrigible to the end, Pegs.”

“Oh, get off your arse and get a vase for these,” Peggy sighed through her smile, and Cosima did. “And stop that smirking, I can tell.”

“Yes ma’am.” Facing away from Peggy as she snagged a vase from a nearby cabinet, Cosima her could almost pretend she was back where she belonged. Peggy was with her, and Peggy had dark brown hair, bright red lips, and a submachine gun, and Cosima…

Cosima had a purpose she believed in and a family in her sisters and brothers, and a family in the Howling Commandos and a reason to get up in the morning and--

“I can also tell when you’re brooding, you know.”

Cosima plastered a grin back on and turned back to Peggy. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Stop that,” Peggy ordered, a bit of the iron commander’s voice seeping in.

“You can’t give me orders,” Cosima shot back, her mouth fitting comfortably around the old familiar words. “I’m a captain.”

“Like hell I can’t,” Peggy echoed, a wry twist to her lips all the same. “I’m a director.”

“You’ve got me there,” Cosima sighed, taking the flowers back from Peggy and settling them in the vase. The framed photos on the nightstand caught her eye, smiling faces from ages past staring up at her. Peggy and a lighter-haired woman who looked familiar somehow, the two of them with their arms around each other and grinning broadly at the camera. Peggy in a wedding dress and beaming. Peggy a little older, with a baby, and a little older, with a young boy and girl.

Peggy now, the wrinkles no longer thin but fanned across her face, her breaths rasping just the tinest bit, and smiling so tiredly up at Cosima.

“You were the logical choice to head SHIELD, of course.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Captain. In any case, you’d be one of the few to think so.”

“In any case, I bet you wasted no time proving them wrong.”

“Hm,” Peggy chuckled weakly. “It was damn fun, too.”

“I bet it was.” Cosima took a seat next to Peggy’s bed. Peggy lifted her hand slightly, and Cosima took it in both of hers, hyperaware of how fragile it felt in her own superpowered fingers. “Bet you had a lot of fun I missed out on over the years.”

“Yes,” Peggy agreed, her hand squeezing Cosima’s. “And you should’ve been there for it.” Cosima ducked her head, and Peggy squeezed harder. “Cosima, I’m sorr--”

“Don’t,” Cosima said quickly, shaking her head. “Peggy, none of this was your fault, and you know it.”

“Isn’t it?”

“It was my decision, Peggy,” Cosima said, stroking her thumb over Peggy’s knuckles. “Mine and mine alone. Hey,” she added, “You think I would’ve done any of what I did for those fatheads that called themselves our commanding officers back then?”

“Watch your tone,” Peggy teased back. “I became one of those commanders, you know.”

“Oh, how the great fall,” Cosima gasped in mock-agony before sobering. “Or in your case, become greater.”

“Cosima…”

“I’m serious,” she replied, smiling. “You should be damn proud of yourself, you know.”

“As should you.”

“I didn’t--”

“You saved the world,” Peggy chastised, a new intensity to her voice.

“I had help.” Cosima’s shoulders slumped, just a bit, but enough for Peggy to notice.

“I’m sorry that I’m the last one standing,” Peggy said gently, reaching over with her free hand to pat Cosima’s. “I know I’m not the one you really want to be with.”

“I want--” Cosima shook her head, feeling her grip tighten unconsciously on Peggy’s and she quickly forced herself to relax it. “I want _all_ of you with me.”

“But especially her. It’s okay,” Peggy added, patting Cosima’s hand again. “Cosima, it’s okay.”

“It’s--everyone else, there’s military records, interviews, hell, documentaries about them--but--”

“There’s nothing about Delphine,” Peggy replied. Cosima wasn’t sure what was wrong with her today--she’d held it together through the exhibit, hell, she’d been holding it together for months, but the understanding in Peggy’s voice came close to breaking her. “And you need to know.”

“It’s not the only reason I--”

“I _understand,”_ Peggy half-scolded. “It’s been two years for you now, hasn’t it? You deserve this.”

“You don’t have to--”

“Of course I do,” Peggy replied, sounding an awful lot like her old self. “Now, what do you want to know?”

“I--” _Everything. Nothing. I want to be asking **her.**_ “Was she...it would be stupid to ask if she was happy, wouldn’t it?”

“She wasn’t,” Peggy said frankly, her gentle touch contrasting with her tone. “Of course she wasn’t. She loved you, you fool. And you know that.”

Cosima half-nodded, fiddling with a stray lock of hair as she did.

“She had hope,” Peggy said, half-startling Cosima. “She believed in you--from the moment she met you, I think. She had that.”

“Yeah,” Cosima muttered sardonically. “And that’s what led her out into the arctic, and that’s--that’s why she--”

“It was her decision, Cosima. Hers and hers alone.”

“You can’t do that,” Cosima shot back, a challenge rising in her. “You can’t pretend that she would’ve been out there on the ice--you can’t pretend that she would’ve gone missing if it wasn’t for me.”

“No,” Peggy agreed, and that was enough to shut Cosima up for a moment. “But I can’t pretend that any of us would’ve been alive to mourn her if it wasn’t for you, either. You _saved the world,_ Cosima, and you can’t pretend that you didn’t because you want to be a more depressing figure.” Peggy sighed, and she looked so sad and tired when she spoke next. “You saved the world. Anything that happened after that is on the rest of us, not you.”

“I don’t…” Cosima felt achingly homesick all at once, not just for her time and her home but for her purpose, her family, her _happiness._ It was like she was a little girl again, separated from her mother just after they’d moved to New York and searching for her in a crowd--everything was different, everything was wrong, and she just wanted someone to lead her back and tell her everything was going to be okay. “I don’t know what to do, Peggy.”

“Sometimes,” Peggy whispered, “the best we can do is start over--”

Peggy started to cough in a way that made Cosima think of another lifetime, and she quickly disentangled her fingers from Peggy’s to turn and reach for a glass of water.

“Peggy. Peggy, breathe,” she said quickly, the glass of water in one hand and the other resting on Peggy’s shoulder, rubbing in an attempt at comfort. “Yeah, there you go,” she added, as Peggy’s breathing evened out. Peggy opened her eyes, bleary with confusion for half a second before they landed on Cosima.

They cleared, and filled with recognition and soaring joy, and Cosima’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach.

“...Cosima…?”

“Yeah,” Cosima forced herself to say. Peggy reached up and cupped Cosima’s face in her hands, and Cosima gently laid her hand over one of Peggy’s paper-thin ones.

 _“Cosima,”_ Peggy gasped, her eyes filling with tears. “You’re _alive.”_

“You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?” Cosima’s heart was breaking, and she desperately hoped Peggy couldn’t tell.

“Have you seen Delphine? Cosima, she needs you, it’s been _so long--”_

“Don’t worry, Peggy,” Cosima hushed her gently, forcing her voice not to break. “I will. It’ll all be okay. We’ll get our happy ending. All of us. Don’t you worry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! I have to thank, again, the two magnificent people who made it all possible, Noelle, and Chaya (therenegadegabbai on tumblr). I know the last few chapters have felt like filler, but the plot should start kicking in very soon :) I hope you enjoyed, and please please feel free to leave comments or criticism below or on tumblr, where I'm elizaskylers, and I promise to answer them all soon, when I'm not dashing out the door for a twelve-hour tech rehearsal. Have wonderful weeks and I'll see you all soon!
> 
> <3


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Grief, mourning, PTSD, discussions of (real-life) war and PTSD.

“The important thing, councilmembers, is not to become focused on a single boat. It is the fleet that is important, and the fleet that is safe--and, I may remind you, the boat as well in the end.”

“Be that as it may, Madam Secretary,” Councilman Yen interrupted, barely flinching as the Secretary of the World Security Council turned her full attention on him. Secretary Duncan smiled, small and tight, her hands folded over her perfectly pressed skirt, and Yen bravely pushed on. “This is still a _serious breach.”_

“No one is denying this, Councilman. And yet it is the first in SHIELD’s history, and we now are better able to prevent further attacks.”

“You’re willing to sacrifice a ship for a bit of extra information--”

_“Yú yǔ xióng zhǎng bù kě--”_ The secretary stopped, turning to face the glass wall at the back of the room. Fury raised his hand in a gesture that was half-greeting and half-summons. “Councilmembers, would you excuse me?”

“Another crisis, Madam Secretary?”

The secretary continued out of the room without a second glance, the holograms of the World Council members fading away behind her.

“Secretary Duncan.”

“Nicholas.” Duncan stepped forward, taking Fury’s hand fondly. “I was wondering when I’d see you here.”

“It has been a while,” he agreed, shaking his head when she gestured for him to sit. “Unfortunately, I’m not here for pleasure.”

“Few people are,” Duncan agreed, her heels clicking against the office floor as crossed to pour them both tea. 

“You’re handling the council alright in there?”

“Of course,” Duncan replied, smiling again. “Some fires are easy to put out.”

“Hm.” Fury accepted the teacup, though he didn’t drink. “I want you to call for a vote. Project Insight needs to be delayed.”

Duncan hesitated for only half a moment. “Nicholas, I don’t think you realize what you’re asking.”

“It could be nothing,” Fury sighed, shaking his head. “It probably is nothing.”

“And yet,” Duncan murmured, taking a sip of her tea.

“And yet, if it is something,” Fury sighed. “Rachel, your foster father was one of my closest friends, if not my only one. This is his legacy, and we’ll both be very damn glad those helicarriers aren’t in the air.”

Fury glanced at the photo on the desk, the only personal touch in the office. In it, former council secretary and the foster father of the current secretary Alexander Pierce was being sworn in, a much younger Nick Fury holding the bible. Duncan followed his gaze, taking another swallow of tea.

“Of course,” she said at last. “His legacy is important to all of us.”

“You’re not gonna ask for anything in return?”

She took Fury’s still-untouched teacup, smiling up at him. “I’ll collect on it later.”

“I’m sure you will.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I--I think it’s getting worse. A cop pulled me over last week. He thought I was drunk because I swerved to miss a plastic bag.” The woman stopped speaking, twisting her hands in her lap before dropping her gaze. Cosima, watching from the doorway, dropped her eyes as well, feeling like an intruder in this sanctuary. “I thought it was an IED.”

“Some stuff you leave there. Some stuff you bring back.” Sam was sitting in the circle of veterans, leaning forward with earnestness shining from his eyes. “But it’s our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase? Or a little man-purse? That’s up to you.”

The meeting broke up relatively quickly after that--people moving to gather their things, snag the last few brownies from the snack table, shake Sam’s hand one last time, saying things like _thanks man,_ and _I’ll see you next week._ Cosima was halfway to ducking out when Sam spotted her and moved over, grinning.

“Well, if it isn’t the tiny runner herself.”

“I may be little, but I still beat you,” Cosima snorted, before sobering again. “I heard the last bit--it’s pretty intense.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed, waving to a couple of people as they left. “But we all got the same problems, don’t we? Guilt. Regret.”

It was easy to hear the change in his voice--and even if she hadn’t, Cosima wouldn’t have missed the shadow that crossed his face as he spoke. This man hadn’t fought in her war, but he had fought in a war, and it seemed to still damage people in the same ways it had in 1945.

“Who did you lose?”

“My wingman, Riley. Flying a night mission. Standard PJ rescue op.” Cosima didn’t really understand the acronyms, but the emotion was all too familiar. “Nothing we hadn’t done a thousand times before. Until an RPG knocked Riley’s dumb ass out of the sky.” Sam stared past her, at a scene she’d never see and he’d never forget, and she reached out to lay a hand on his arm.

“Nothing I could do. It’s like I was only up there to watch.”

“I’m sorry,” Cosima murmured, knowing the words weren’t enough. Sam shrugged, the dark expression fading to something just behind his eyes instead of across his face.

“I had a really hard time coming up with a reason for being over there after that, you know?”

“Yeah,” Cosima said, “Yeah, I do.”

Sam gave her a knowing look, relaxing a bit out of his soldier’s posture. “You’re thinking of getting out, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Cosima snorted, shaking her head. “No, I guess. I wouldn't have anywhere to go if I did.”

“Transitions can be rough,” Sam said gently, managing not to even sound condescending when he did. “Lemme tell you, I am a hell of a lot happier now that the number of people giving me orders’s down to none, but that doesn’t mean making the change was easy.”

“I know where this is going,” Cosima sighed, cutting Sam off. “Believe me, I’m fine. I’m Captain America, I just need to get my shit together.”

“Doesn’t hurt to have a couple of people there to help gather that shit,” Sam replied, good-natured but undeterred. “At least so you have someone there for when that shit hits the fan.”

“I think that metaphor broke down on you,” Cosima pointed out, and Sam huffed a laugh.

“I’m serious, man. Get yourself a support system and do what makes you happy. What makes you happy?”

Cosima thought for a long moment before looking up at Sam, her lips pulled into a smile. 

“I’ll see you around, Sam.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima walked slowly to her apartment door, exhaustion dragging at her even as her feet moved steadily forward. Already thinking of the pot stashed on the balcony--or anything, really, to try and make her mind lighter, even for just a little bit--she didn’t notice the keys slipping from her fingers until they clattered to the ground.

“Shit.”

“Rough day?”

Cosima started only slightly at the voice, but Shay still looked apologetic as she stood outside her own apartment, arms full of groceries.

“A little. Long, mostly,” Cosima admitted, chuckling a bit self-deprecatingly. “How can you tell?”

“Well, to start, you’re swearing at your keys,” Shay pointed out, blue eyes crinkling as they both laughed a bit at that. “Plus, your chakras are…” she trailed off, shifting her grocery bag. “Blocked? Or maybe tangled?”

“Um, thank you?” 

“It’s not a good thing,” Shay explained, both of them laughing awkwardly again. “I mean, no offense, but your chakras are some of the least flowing I’ve ever seen.”

“At least I’m good at something?” Cosima tried, and Shay laughed a little again. She really did have a pretty laugh. And sparkling blue eyes like the sky. “So do you have any tips for getting my chakras flowing again? I’ll buy you a drink in return.”

“Oh, thanks, but I…” Shay shrugged one elegant shoulder. “I’m not really the dating type.”

“I’m not really looking for a date.”

Shay blinked, that look in her eye again--almost cool, almost calculating, like she was reevaluating something in her head--then she smiled and turned to unlock her door.

“Why don’t you let me get those chakras flowing?”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Cosima opened her eyes._

_Freezing mountain wind whipped across her face, icy metal bit through her gloves and into her bones and she shut her eyes instinctively, the scream of the train along the track deafening and the rattle of the wheels threatening to throw her into the chasm below._

_She opened her eyes again and saw Delphine, clinging to a breaking railing, Delphine, beautiful brown eyes blown wide with terror, Delphine, dangling with nothing beneath her, Delphine, Delphine, Delphine--_

_“Take my hand!”_

_Cosima reached, and reached, but Delphine’s hand was too far away, just out of reach._

_“Come on!” Their fingertips brushed. “Please!”_

_The railing broke and Cosima lunged, and there was the twist as Delphine’s shoulder came loose from its socket, there was the scream like claws in her heart, there was the tunnel looming ahead, darker than night._

_“I’m falling,” Delphine whispered, fingernails biting into Cosima’s wrist._

_“I’ve got you.”_

_“I’m falling.”_

_“I’ve got you,” Cosima pleaded, and the train screamed ahead, and Cosima pulled on Delphine’s arm but Delphine didn’t move, neither of them did, and the tunnel gaped ahead of them both and Cosima pulled and she pulled and Delphine stared at her with begging eyes and the tunnel was larger and larger and Cosima pulled and PULLED--_

_And the tunnel swallowed them whole._

_“I’m falling.”_

_Cosima opened her eyes._

_She was tangled in the rough blankets of her old familiar bed, in her old familiar room, in that old familiar silence. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Sarah’s bed, and the old vanity covered in bits of Helena’s favorite foods._

_In front of her was Delphine, their faces inches apart, Cosima’s arm around Delphine’s waist and their legs tangled together, both of them fitting comfortably despite the fact that the bed had always felt too narrow._

_“I caught you,” Cosima whispered, “I caught you, I remember.”_

_“I’m falling.”_

_“I caught you,” Cosima insisted, reaching up to tangle her hand in Delphine’s curls, the texture almost perfectly remembered. “On the train, you were falling, and I caught you.”_

_“Yes,” Delphine agreed, speaking like a sleepwalker. “You caught me.”_

_“I saved you,” Cosima breathed._

_“Save me,” Delphine said in the same breath. “Cosima, I’m falling, save me, please--”_

_“Delphine, I--” Cosima’s breath caught on a sob. “Delphine, you’re not falling. You fell.”_

_“I--”_

_“You fell, Delphine,” Cosima repeated, the words feeling like they were ripping her apart. “You fell into a crevasse, in the arctic, in 1945, and I--I wasn’t there.”_

_Delphine frowned, like a confused child, and Cosima felt tears running down her face._

_“I wasn’t there, Delphine, you came looking and I wasn’t there for you, and I couldn’t catch you, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry but you fell, you fell and I couldn’t reach you.”_

_“Save me,” Delphine pleaded, her hands going to Cosima’s face the same way Cosima’s hands were on Delphine’s. “Cosima, save me--”_

_“I can’t reach you.” The confession felt torn from Cosima’s core, but instead of making her feel lighter it just pulled her down further, the heavy seeds of guilt in her gut blooming into vines, the vines twisting around until she couldn’t breathe. “I can’t, Delphine, you--you left me.”_

_Cosima pressed her forehead to Delphine’s, clinging to her like it would make any difference, searching for the familiar scents of red wine and rosewater, finding nothing but air._

_“You left me,” Cosima sobbed, words spilling from her like blood from a bullet hole. “I know you were looking for me, I know you wanted to save me, but you left me. You promised me you wouldn’t, you promised me that you never would but I’m alone, you left me here, and I can’t reach you and I’ll never reach you again, I’ll never see you again, or my sisters, or my brothers, and I’ll never teach Helena how to make pot brownies and I’ll never meet Sarah’s kid or sleep in my stupid bed ever again and I can’t--I can’t even save you, and it’s killing me.”_

_“Cosima,” Delphine murmured again. There was a thudding in Cosima’s head, a heartbeat--maybe it was hers, maybe it was Delphine’s, maybe hers and Delphine’s were always the same--and it almost drowned out Cosima’s sobs. “Please.”_

_“I would,” Cosima vowed, holding onto Delphine tightly enough that it had to be painful, even if Delphine wasn’t reacting at all. “Believe me, Delphine, I would, I would.”_

_“Cosima,” she heard Delphine say, “Cosima.”_

_And then she felt Delphine beginning to fade._

_“Delphine?”_

_She could feel Delphine turning to air, to nothing, and she tried to hold tighter only to feel Delphine fall apart beneath her fingers._

_“You can’t--you can’t do this, Delphine, don’t--” The heartbeat--or maybe heartbeats--roared in her ears almost as loud as her screams. “You can’t leave me, don’t--Delphine, you promised me, please, PLEASE--”_

Cosima woke in Shay’s bed, tangled in the sheets, to the sound of pounding coming from the apartment next door.

“Do you hear that?”

Shay was standing in the doorway of the room, a periwinkle robe draped over her curves. "Isn't that noise coming from your apartment?"

“Yeah, yeah,” Cosima said quickly, scrubbing at her face and grabbing her glasses before sliding out of bed and grabbing her pants off the floor. “Shit, have you seen my bra?”

“You look better without it,” Shay said, but handed it to Cosima anyway, her face stiff with worry. 

“Hey, relax,” Cosima said, trying to think of an explanation for the noise that didn’t involve aliens, agents from other agencies, or basically anything that would sound reasonable to a civilian. “It’s...it’s probably just my cat.”

“Your cat.” Shay raised an eyebrow, and Cosima did her best to look serious. Something pounded on the wall again, and they both stiffened. 

“Yeah. Just...stay here though, yeah?” Not waiting for a response, Cosima shrugged on her bra and grabbed her hoodie, slinging it over her shoulders and dashing out the door.

As soon as Shay’s door closed, the mask dropped. Cosima’s shoulders straightened and she pressed herself into the wall, inching toward her own apartment.

The door creaked open the moment Cosima nudged it, and she inched forward on hyperalert, grabbing her shield where it rested in the front hallway and hugging it to her front.

Music leaked out of her living room.

“Hello?”

There was no response--not that she’d been expecting one--and Cosima took the last few steps toward her living room doorway, every second feeling like an hour, every sound amplified, every breath--

“I’m sorry to drop in on you like this.”

“Fury what the _fuck.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I wanna thank you all so so much for bearing with me these last few weeks--between one production starting performances, another in rehearsal, and with exams looming, I'm just trying to keep my head above water. I know that these chapters haven't been too exciting, and not all of you like Shay, but I promise things will be picking up soon.
> 
> Comments are always welcome and criticism is always, always encouraged! I read and love every single one, and will be replying to them as soon as I get free time back. I'm also always up to chatting on tumblr at elizaskylers.
> 
> Have great weeks, guys!


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Canon-typical violence, death, grief, mourning.

A wince crossed over what Cosima could see of Nicholas Fury’s face--the lights were off, though her CD player was on. He was sitting in her fuzzy armchair, and at any other time, the sight would be enough to send her into giggles.

For the moment, she was seriously considering punching the man.

“My wife kicked me out.”

“You aren’t married,” she snapped, reaching for the switch and turning on the lamp across the room. Fury sighed, slowly reaching over and turning it off.

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

“Do you really wanna have this argument again?” Cosima turned the light on again, and Fury turned it off--but not before Cosima caught a glimpse of bruises and blood. Worry settled in the pit of her stomach all over again. “That was you knocking on the wall?”

Fury gave a brief nod, typing something on the phone Cosima realized he’d been hiding in his hand.

_EARS EVERYWHERE._

“Sorry to interrupt your date,” he continued, typing again and holding up the screen. _SHIELD COMPROMISED._ The worry in Cosima’s stomach turned to ice. “But I had nowhere else to crash.”

“Who else knows about your wife?” Cosima breathed. 

Fury stood, his injuries becoming all the more obvious, holding the phone in front of him like a man who’d just dropped his only weapon.

“Just my friends.”

_YOU AND ME._

The scoff slipped out despite herself. _“We’re_ friends now?”

“If you want to be.” 

“And if I--”

And the room exploded.

_“NICK!”_ Cosima screamed, the man’s pained shout echoing with the gunshots in her ears. She fell to her knees and scrambled across the floor, dragging him away from the windows the shots had come from. “Nick, Nick, _shit,_ it’s-it’s okay, you’re okay,” she told him, over and over, balling up her hoodie and shoving it into the first wound she saw. There were _so many wounds._ “Okay, I’m gonna get--”

Nick’s grip around her wrist was far too strong for a man who was bleeding out on her apartment floor.

“Don’t...trust... _anyone,”_ he ground out, pressing something rectangular and hard into Cosima’s palm. She took it automatically, and Nick’s hand went slack.

“Nick--”

“Captain Sadler?”

Cosima’s mind was still caught up in _SHIELD compromised_ and _Nick fucking Fury is down,_ but she had enough presence of mind to slide the rectangle in her pocket with one hand, the other holding the now-soaked hoodie in place.

“Cosima?”

_Shay,_ Cosima realized, and then _shit._ “Shay, just stay out there for a second,” she called, reaching for something else--anything else--to help soak up the blood. “I just, uh--”

“It’s okay, Captain,” Shay said, soft and sweet, and then she rounded the corner. 

Shay was still in her periwinkle robe, makeup still smeared from the night before. Now, however, she was carrying a gun, far too gracefully for it to be her first time. 

“I’m Agent Fourteen of SHIELD--”

“I couldn’t have fucking guessed.”

“I’m here to protect you,” Shay continued, undeterred by Cosima’s interruption but trailing off into a whisper when her eyes landed on Fury’s figure. “He sent me.” 

In the next moment Shay was a flurry of movement, checking pulses and barking orders into a communicator she’d been hiding God-knows-where, the periwinkle robe quickly joining Cosima’s hoodie as a makeshift bandage. Cosima was still reeling from the image of her hook-up giving _Nicholas Fury_ emergency treatment on her apartment floor, when a flash of silver caught her eye.

In the next moment she was standing with her back to the wall, staring at the rooftop where she’d seen the flash.

The rooftop just across from the window the shots had come from.

“Captain Sadler,” Shay shouted, her robe already more red than blue--and it couldn’t have been more than ten seconds since she’d started treating Fury, the man was hurt _bad_ \-- “The shooter?”

“I’m going after him.” 

_“Captain--”_

Cosima jumped out the window.

There was half a moment of free-fall, and then Cosima was slamming through the window in the building across from her own, some small and detached part of her incredibly grateful that it was an office building instead of another set of apartments. The rest of her was falling back into that familiar feeling of adrenaline and razor-sharp clarity and _man down, if he dies it’s on me._

_It’s on me._

She used her momentum to launch herself off the walls, shoving herself through doors and not looking back to see if they survived. Just ahead of her, visible only through the occasional flash of silver, ran the shooter, their pace matching Cosima’s almost exactly. 

_Fuck you._ Cosima clenched her jaw, lowered her head behind her shield, and launched herself through the last set of windows in front of her.

The reinforced glass didn’t stand a chance.

Cosima rolled and sprung to feet, just in time to see the shooter reach the edge of the rooftop.

_NO._

She’d thrown the shield before she’d even thought about it.

The clang of metal on metal rang out, and the world stopped.

The shooter stood, unmoved, at the edge of the roof.

Metal fingers curled around the shield’s edge.

The shooter was wearing some sort of mask, black and covering the lower half of their face, but it wasn’t that, nor the loose brown hair blowing around their face, nor the metal arm shining in the night.

It was the shooter’s eyes.

They were _wrong._

They were dead.

Cosima stared, some childish part of her thinking _that shield trick always worked before,_ the rest of her stuck on _we are in so much more trouble than we thought._

The shooter’s eyes flicked down to the shield, and back to Cosima’s, not even a hint of a spark in them. A slight tensing of the arm was all the warning Cosima had, and then her own shield was slamming into her with all the force of a train.

She grabbed her shield instinctively, curling around it as the wind rushed out of her lungs.

Cosima looked up and the shooter was gone.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What happened?”

Cosima hadn’t heard Natasha come in. That wasn’t surprising--even if Cosima hadn’t been staring through the observation window in the operating theatre, watching machines beep and surgeons run and Nick Fury, Director Fury, his face slack and tubes coming out of his mouth, naked and vulnerable and totally wrong.

But Cosima recognized the tone in Natasha’s voice--the need for information, trying to understand what was happening as the world was falling apart, all almost entirely hidden under Natasha’s everyday, even tone.

“Shooter on the eastern rooftop. The bullets went through his upper left quadrant at a downward angle, and the right quadrant--probably the liver. At least one of them was still in there. He had some other injuries when--when he came to me. I didn’t get a chance to see how bad they were. Not before…”

Natasha nodded, one even, clipped movement. “Tell me about the shooter.”

“They…” Cosima swallowed, watching the surgeons shout and work. “They were fast. As fast as me. And just as strong. With a metal arm. Is that--is that a thing, now--?”

“The ballistics?”

Agent Hill appeared in the room like smoke, all of them looking forward and none of them at each other.

“Three slugs, with no rifling. Totally untraceable.”

“They were Soviet-made,” Natasha murmured, not a hint of question in her voice.

“Yeah.”

The shouting of the surgeons turned urgent, calls for crash carts and defibrillators and the anxious blaring of machines reaching a fever pitch.

“Don’t do this to me, Nick,” Natasha murmured, low and urgent. Cosima stepped closer to the Natasha, leaning into the taller woman’s side. Cosima didn’t need the support, and she knew Natasha would see right through the move, but she also didn’t push Cosima away.

_“No pulse--”_

_“Charge to 200, please!”_ Cosima’s breath caught into her throat as Nick jerked on the table. 

“Defibrillator,” Natasha whispered, emotionless. “Standard treatment when the heart isn’t--”

_“Push epinephrine!”_

_“No pulse--”_

_“Charge 250!”_

“Don’t do this to me, Nick, don’t--”

The doctors stopped moving, and Natasha stopped breathing.

_“What’s the time?”_

_“1:03 AM, Doctor.”_

_“Time of death, 1:03 AM.”_

Cosima looked up at Natasha, but the redhead’s face was still impassive, stiff.

“Where’s the morgue?”

“Natasha?”

“The morgue,” she repeated, sounding ready to kill anyone in her way. “Where they’re taking him. Where--”

“Okay,” Cosima interrupted, quickly stepping between Natasha and the SHIELD agents who’d come into the room. “Okay. I’ll walk you down there.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

They’d managed to clean him up nicely.

Of all the things wrong with this scene, it was that small detail Cosima fixated on. Fury looked like he was sleeping, almost peaceful.

Almost not dead.

Natasha stood at his head, her back to Cosima. Her shoulders were hunched, her head was bowed, and Cosima looked away. The flash drive Fury had pressed into her hand, a few hours and a lifetime ago, was heavy in Cosima’s pocket. She ran her fingers over it, again and again, her mind whirling around the question of _why._

The morgue door opened and Cosima’s hand clenched around the drive. She barely managed to stop herself from cracking it.

“I have to take him now,” Agent Hill said, voice heavy with hidden grief.

Natasha swallowed hard, but her hand was steady as she laid it on Fury’s forehead. She stroked his head once, twice, and stepped back.

“Natasha--” Natasha shoved past them both, forcing her way into the hallway. Cosima followed, half-running to keep up. “Natasha--”

Natasha spun around and grabbed Cosima’s arm, pushing her up into the wall.

“Why was Fury in your apartment?”

“I--” Cosima sputtered, eyes darting away. “I don’t know.”

“Captain.” Natasha dropped Cosima’s am as the STRIKE team filed into the hall, but her gaze didn’t leave Cosima’s face. “Cap,” the leader continued, “They want you back at SHIELD.”

“Course they do,” Cosima sighed. “In a minute.”

“They want you now--”

“In a _minute.”_

Natasha huffed a flat, humorless laugh. “You’re a terrible liar,” she snapped, stepping back and disappearing down the hall. Cosima started to follow her and then stopped, glancing back toward the STRIKE team waiting down the hall.

The flash drive felt like a beacon in her pocket.

“Cap?”

“Yeah, one sec,” she called back, sliding her hand into her pocket and running her thumb over the drive again. “I’m just gonna go to the bathroom.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shay looked out of place, in a well-tailored suit with at least three guns and her pretty blonde hair--the blonde hair Cosima had tangled her hands in hours before--tied back in a neat bun.

“Cosima, I--”

“Don’t, Agent,” Cosima snapped back, not even looking back at Shay. “Don’t.”

Cosima marched past, half shouldering her way past the STRIKE team and into the room they were trying to direct her toward, only to get in and stop short.

She probably should've paid more attention to the team when they were telling her where they were going, because Cosima was not prepared for SHIELD Secretary to the World Council to be waiting for her.

“Uh, Madam Secretary,” she said as politely as she could.

The other woman turned gracefully from where she’d been gazing out of the office’s floor length windows, hands folded on a perfectly pressed and tailored skirt.

“There’s no need to sound so surprised, Captain,” she said smoothly, heels clicking as she walked over to the smooth glass desk. There was a chair clearly intended for guests in front of the desk, but Cosima chose to keep standing. “Tea?”

“I’m good,” Cosima replied slowly, watching the woman pour a cup for herself and sit in the large leather chair behind the desk.

“Sit,” the secretary said when it became clear that Cosima wasn’t going to without prompting. It didn’t sound like a suggestion. “Captain Sadler, my name is Rachel Duncan, and you are going to tell me every detail of Director Fury’s death.”

“Am I?” The quip was automatic, like a cornered animal’s snarl. Duncan’s lips curled into a smile that was somewhere between benevolent and amused.

“Forgive me,” she murmured, “I’m sure that was quite blunt. But you must understand how vital it is to me that Nicholas’ killer is found.” Cosima watched as Duncan reached into a nearby drawer and drew out a small photograph, sliding it across the desk to Cosima.

The photo was clearly old, featuring a much-younger and nearly unrecognizable Nick Fury with another man Cosima had to fight to recognize--the former Undersecretary, Alexander Pierce, who’d died of a heart attack a few years before.

And between the two, looking up with eyes too serious for the small figure, was a dark-haired little girl.

“My father and I, just before Nicholas was sworn in as SHIELD’s director,” Duncan explained, almost caressing the photo as she did. She seemed to realize it just as Cosima did, pulling her hands back into her lap. “Nicholas was more than a simple colleague,” she continued, “He was a trusted associate of my late father’s--and saved my life on more than one occasion.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Cosima replied.

“The sentiment is appreciated,” Duncan replied, no trace of appreciation in her tone. “What would be more useful is knowing what Nicholas was doing in your apartment last night.”

“I’d tell you if I knew,” Cosima lied easily.

“Captain,” Duncan sighed. “Did you know that your apartment was bugged?” 

Cosima gritted her teeth, but forced the swell of anger down. “Yeah.”

“Did you know Nicholas was the one who bugged it?”

“Well, he always was a bit of a dick.”

“Hm.” Duncan almost smirked, and looked quite frightening as she did. “Captain, I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of the situation.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.” 

“I’m not the enemy, Cosima,” Duncan said like she was speaking to a child. “It isn’t you against the world, you know. You have friends at SHIELD.” Duncan reached into her desk again, placing a file marked _LEMURIAN STAR HIJACKING--INVESTIGATION_ on the desk. Cosima glanced at the title and, despite herself, took it. “Some of the evidence seems to indicate Nicholas wasn’t one of them.”

“I thought Fury was like your family,” Cosima shot back, rising to leave. “And you’re accusing him before he’s even cold in the ground?”

“Even family needs to behave.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima ducked into the women’s bathroom, locked the stall door, and immediately began skimming the file.

It wasn’t long until she understood what it was getting at. 

The hijacking of the Leumerian Star wasn’t random--Batroc and his men were hired. By someone who went to massive, massive lengths to hide their tracks.

Someone who bought a company under the name of a dead man, Jacob Veech, to hide the last of the transactions.

A dead man who, before his death, lived at 1435 Elmhust Drive.

A note in the margins--once upon a time, Nick Fury’s mother lived at 1437.

_Fury hired the pirates._

It took a matter of seconds for Cosima to shove her way back into Duncan’s office. The blonde didn’t even pretend to look surprised to see her there.

“This is _bullshit,”_ Cosima spat, throwing the file onto the desk. “Fury attack his own ships? T-to cover up illegal sales of information? There is no way in hell that man, asshole that is is, would’ve done anything like that. And--”

“We are in agreement.”

“I--what?” Cosima blinked, losing the thread of her rant for a moment. 

“I agree with you, Captain,” Duncan repeated, straightening out the papers in the file and slipping it back into a drawer as she did. “We both knew Nicholas, and this is _incredibly_ out of character for him. There is something more going on.” Duncan sat and leaned forward, her entire posture turning entreating. “We both have questions. SHIELD can you--can help us--find answers. Will you help?”

Cosima blinked. Duncan was invested in this--Fury had been her family. She was running SHIELD now. She needed to know what Cosima knew.

At the same time, Fury’s last words echoed in the back of her mind. _Don’t trust anyone._

“Captain?”

“Yeah--yeah,” Cosima said quickly, unconsciously taking half a step back from the desk as she did. “Course I will. Just--I’m just gonna go back to the apartment, see if I can pick up any clues on the shooter. Or why he was even there. I’ll be sure to let you know first thing if I think of anything.”

Cosima knocked over the chair on the way out, almost managing to catch it before deciding it would be smoother if she just went for the door.

“Oh, and Captain?” 

Cosima turned back, and couldn’t quite quell the thrill of foreboding that ran through her when her eyes met Duncan’s.

“I will find Nicholas’s killer. And anyone who gets in my way _will_ suffer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading and for bearing with me! Hopefully by next week, things in my life will be a little less chaotic and I'll be able to go through and respond to all your comments, but please know that I read and love every single one of them! They are always, always appreciated, and of course, criticism is encouraged!
> 
> Have wonderful weeks and thank you again <3


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of death, canon-typical violence and fight scenes.

Cosima shrugged while she waited for the elevator, feeling the comforting familiar weight of her shield shift against her shoulders. It was so much easier to put on a uniform in the morning, to tie back her hair and put on her glasses and close her eyes and pretend to not hear the chaos of the city, to pretend there was no hum of electronics in the background, to replace the bustle of the city with the bustle of her family and pretend she could hear them calling her.

It was easiest to pretend.

“Operations Control,” she requested, stepping into the elevator and only half-hearing the doors shut behind her. A few seconds later, they opened again, a team of black-suited operatives filing in and chatting amongst themselves. Cosima rolled her eyes and moved to the back of the elevator, staring out the glass walls instead of at them.

A few more floors passed, and a few more groups of people squeezed their way onto the elevator. Cosima sighed, wondering how long it was going to take to get to the ground floor at this rate. 

“Cap?”

It took Cosima a few seconds to place the voice. “Rumlow.”

“The evidence response team found some fibers on that rooftop,” Rumlow continued, seemingly undisturbed by Cosima’s distraction. “Want me to get a Tac team out there?”

“Uh, no, no,” she said quickly, realizing he was waiting for a response. “Let’s get all the data before jumping to conclusions, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rumlow replied, nodding curtly. “Listen, I, uh, I’m sorry about Fury. It’s--it’s messed up, what happened to him.” 

“No kidding,” Cosima said, trying to figure out where Rumlow where was going with this. But instead of continuing, Rumlow just nodded again. With a sigh of relief, Cosima returned to staring out the window.

But something felt off in the air, tickling at the back of her mind. As had been beaten into her by Agent Carter, and had kept her alive on the front, Cosima fell back on her instincts.

Something was off.

Careful to keep her shoulders relaxed and face blank, Cosima glanced around the elevator. The conversations around her were stilted, stiff-- _scripted._ The man in front of her was clutching his briefcase too tightly. The man to the left of him was sweating. There was a young man three operatives over whose hands were shaking.

_SHIELD compromised,_ Fury had warned. _Anyone who gets in my way **will** suffer,_ Duncan had said.

One operative coughed, eyes flicking nervously to her and back.

_Oh._

“Well?” Cosima asked the now-silent elevator car. “Are you gonna make me wait all day?”

A beat passed. Two.

An operative leapt at her.

Cosima caught his arm in both hands and twisted before letting go, letting the man’s momentum carry him and his crackling taser-stick to the ground. The movement sent her backward, however, and into the arms of a burly operative who grabbed her upper arms, pulling her back against the wall of the elevator. The elevator screeched to a halt.

Arms pinned by the man behind her, Cosima tried to wiggle free before going limp. The man was surprised for only half a second, but it was enough as she dropped to the ground, letting the second operative who had been coming at her with another taser taze his friend instead.

Another set of hands hauled her up. She managed to kick at least a few on the way up, but then an arm was around her throat and that was _really not ideal._

Another operative-- _how many were there?_ \--grabbed her wrist, clamping something around it and raising it level with one of the elevator’s metal supports. It started pulling backward-- _magnetic, shit_ \--and Cosima strained against it with all of her might.

Which is when someone caught her in the side with a taser.

She choked, the world suddenly going white, and her wrist slammed into the wall.

_Shit._

The latest taser-wielding goon pulled back for another strike and Cosima kicked instinctively, using her trapped wrist as an anchor as she lashed out in every direction she could. An elbow in one guy’s face, her heel in another, and two well placed jabs to the groin and head of the man standing behind her and suddenly the playing field was looking a little more level.

She curled up into a crouch against the wall as yet another goon lashed out at her. Running on pure instinct and luck, she braced her boots against the wall and grabbed her trapped hand, using both her strength and weight to pull at the shackle.

It came free at last and Cosima landed on the ground in a crouch.

There were three men left standing, one of them Rumlow, and one of them aiming a taser at her head. She brought her arm up to block the second man’s strike, smoothly pulling back her other arm and punching him hard enough to shatter his nose.

Without turning around, she elbowed the last of the nameless operatives solidly in the gut. He bent double and she landed a solid blow to the back of his neck.

Cosima spun around, placing her back to the wall. In front of her, Rumlow raised the two tasers he’d apparently grabbed from the unconscious men on the floor.

“Easy, little lady,” he said, calm and slow.

Cosima punched him in the face, and he went down like a sack of bricks.

Cosima bent down, grabbing her shield from the ground where it’d gotten lost somewhere in the chaos. The magnetic shackle was still tight around her wrist, but one quick blow with the shield shattered it.

She placed the shield on her back, straightened up, and hit the elevator’s door open button.

The doors opened onto a team of operatives, all armed and all aiming at her.

Cosima hit the door close button.

_“Captain--”_ One of them shouted, but the elevator already shut. She hit the button for the ground floor, once, twice, and then slammed the button panel hard enough that it shattered. 

The elevator stayed still.

“Outside override, _damnit,”_ she hissed, pacing around the car and not particularly caring as she stepped on several operatives as she did. There had to be half of SHIELD outside the doors and she was stuck in a _glass box._

A sudden burst of noise had Cosima ducking and covering herself with her shield before she’d even properly registered it. They were firing on the door. It was not going to hold for long.

The glass walls weren’t the toughest in SHIELD, either. Or the elevator cables she could see through them.

“Bad idea,” Cosima whispered, and slammed her shield through the wall, shattering it and splitting the cables with it.

The free fall was only a few seconds, the automatic safety features slamming in and locking the elevator in place, but it was enough. She braced herself against ground, trying to calculate how far she’d dropped. Her super-hearing was already picking up the sound of footsteps approaching the door.

_No way out._

_Well._

_One really bad way out._

“Do or die. Or do and die,” Cosima whispered, stepping as far back as she could in the small space before launching herself forward with as much strength as she had, her shield out in front of her.

In the back of her mind, she remembered one of those early training sessions with Peggy, talking about weapons. _Get them out the window, gravity finishes the job._

Which wasn’t a very comforting thought to have when falling several stories.

The glass ceiling of the main SHIELD offices were approaching far too quickly, and the wind was lashing into her face. Cosima curled up on her shield, gritting her teeth, waiting for the impact.

Then it came, glass shattering around her for the second time in a few seconds.

Then it came again.

Her entire body shuddered as it tried to comprehend that it had just been sent through an elevator, a ceiling, and then hit the ground. A shard of her broken glasses cut into the side of her face.

Around her, people started shouting.

Cosima sucked in a breath through her teeth, shoving down the aches and sprinting for the exit.

A small part of her hoped she was giving whoever was trying to catch her an aneurysm.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hi, welcome to--OMG, are you okay?”

“Um,” Cosima said, glancing around. She felt incredibly, incredibly out of place in the bright pink nail salon, not only wearing her Captain America stealth uniform, but also bruised and bleeding. Krystal was already bustling forward, hands fluttering in distress.

Krystal took Cosima’s upper arm gently, ushering Cosima through the shop and past the customer and worker’s prying eyes with surprising speed. “Come back here, lemme look at that.”

“Krystal--” Cosima started, but found herself pushed into the employee’s locker room, the door closing securely behind them.

“Who did this to you?” Krystal asked softly once they were alone, gently but firmly pushing Cosima onto one of the benches.

“I--” Cosima brushed a loose bit of hair behind her ear, wincing as her fingers brushed the cut on her face. “It’s a long story.” 

“Okay,” Krystal murmured. “That’s okay. You’re Nattie’s friend, right? Cosima?” 

“Yeah,” Cosima nodded. “Look, I’m sorry to drop in on you like this--I just need to call a friend, that’s all.” 

“Don’t be _silly,”_ Krystal scolded, darting over to the side of the lockers and coming back with a first aid kit. “There is no way I’m letting you leave without at least a band-aid.” 

“Krystal--”

“Shh.” Krystal plopped down next to Cosima, popping open the kit. “Look, honey, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, okay? But let me know if there’s anything I can do, yeah? I meant it when I said any friend of Nattie’s is a friend of mine and like, friendship is forever. No matter what.”

“Krystal…” Cosima ducked her head, eyes stinging. “I...thank you. Really. But there’s not really anything--”

“Oh, duh,” Krystal said quickly, smacking her own head lightly. “Sorry, I don’t know what I--”

“No--Krystal, no,” Cosima blurted, seeing Krystal’s eyes darting down and away. “That’s not--I didn’t mean it like that. I just...it’s better for you if you’re not involved. Safer.” She bit her lip, hoping Krystal could see the apology in her eyes.

_I’m a superhero out of my time._

_There’s an entire secret government agency looking for me._

_They were the only safe people I knew, they’ve killed the most powerful man I know and they’re all coming for me._

_I just want to keep you safe._

She just wanted to keep them all safe.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Krystal chirped. “I get it. Totally. But lemme do what I can, yeah? Like bandage up your pretty face. And maybe lend you some clothes,” she added with a small giggle. “Like, your Captain America costume is super cool and all, but it’s gotta be kinda uncomfortable.”

Cosima laughed, so tired, so afraid, ducking her own head and grinning. “Krystal, you have no idea.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nobody took a second glance at the woman who walked through the hospital, her head held high even as she wobbled slightly on her heels, or tugged a bit uncomfortably on the tight magenta dress she was wearing. A large _Victoria’s Secret_ bag was slung over one arm, a few bra straps dangling over the top. With long dark hair falling loose around her shoulders and a few butterfly bandages next to one eye, she looked like any woman in the hospital--a little anxious, a little uncertain, but not out of place.

Cosima glanced around, tugged down the bottom of the magenta dress that seemed to constantly try to creep up her legs, and ducked into the women’s bathroom.

As casually as she could, Cosima strolled through the bathroom, glancing around her before walking up to the pad and tampon dispenser. Humming a vague tune, nerves making her voice break every few seconds, she slid a quarter into the machine and turned the knob.

A tampon dropped out.

“Wait,” Cosima muttered, fumbling for another coin. Another tampon came out. “Shit, wait--” She turned the knob almost too forcefully, a third tampon joining the others. The small out of stock sign popped up in the display window. “What the hell do you mean, _out?_ You don’t have--you need--”

She slammed her hand into the dispenser, leaving a dent. Behind her, a stall door swung open, and Cosima froze.

“Looking for something?” Natasha Romanoff asked. Cosima whirled around. Natasha looked back, almost unrecognizable in a casual hoodie and jeans.

“Nat, what--” Cosima froze at the look in Natasha’s eyes. “You have it, don’t you?” 

“Relax, the flash drive’s safe.” Natasha folded her arms. “Safer than it was in a tampon wrapper.”

“Safe doesn’t mean anything anymore.” Natasha glanced away, annoyed, and Cosima moved forward. Natasha took a step back, but didn’t look as intimidated as Cosima’d hoped.

“Where did you get it?” 

“That--” It was Cosima’s turn to glance away. “That’s not important.”

“Fury gave it to you.” Natasha squinted, leaning forward. “Why?”

“If you know where I got it, you know what’s on it,” Cosima challenged, trying to keep the bit of desperation out of her voice. “Nick gave it to me when he was dying, what’s so important about it?”

“I don’t know--”

“Shut _up,”_ Cosima hissed, shoving Natasha back against the sinks. “I have been lied to enough this century.”

“I don’t _actually_ know everything, Cosima.”

“Yeah. Bet you didn’t know Fury hired the pirates either.” The words were bitter in her mouth, but Natasha didn’t even flinch.

“You can’t say it’s not logical. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, and it got you in too.”

“Don’t make this about me--this is about--”

“I know who killed Fury.” 

Cosima choked on her words. Natasha stared back, impassive, with no signs that he was that she was lying--but there was never any sign that Natasha was lying.

“Can I even trust you?” 

“You have to,” Natasha replied after only the barest pause. “Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe she exists--the few that do refuse to believe she’s female.”

“And of course you know so much better.”

“She’s called the Winter Soldier. Credited with over two dozen assassinations over the last fifty years.”

“So a _ghost_ killed Fury. Casper finally cracked or--”

_“Cosima,”_ Natasha snarled, the venom enough to make Cosima shut up. “Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. My tires were shot out near Odessa. We lost control and went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out but the Winter Soldier was there.” Cosima swallowed, a little taken aback by the look she couldn’t identify in Natasha’s eyes. “I was covering my engineer, so she shot him. Through me.” 

Natasha pulled up the edge of her hoodie, and Cosima’s eyes were drawn immediately to the scar just above the curve of Natasha’s hipbone. It was puckered, still a reddish-pink, and jarring against the pale skin.

“Soviet slug,” Natasha continued in a low murmur. “No rifling. And no more bikinis.” 

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s possible for you to look bad in a bikini,” Cosima quipped on autopilot, the rest of her trying to come to terms with the influx of information. “Okay, so we have an alias and an MO. That’s a starting point--”

“Cosima,” Natasha hissed, arm darting out to grab Cosima’s. “You can’t go after her. I’ve tried.” 

“And I’m really in a mood to trust you right now.”

“Cosima--”

“I don’t care,” Cosima spat back, ripping her arm out of Natasha’s grip. “I’m going after whoever killed Fury. Are you coming or not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have more Krystal, and the plot is really getting underway now :) I hope you enjoyed the chapter! As always, comments are very, very welcome, and criticism encouraged--I'm on tumblr as elizaskylers, please come say hi! Today's the closing of one of the shows I'm in, and I've got finals later this week, so once those are through I'll have more time and respond to each and every one of you--I read and love every comment! Have fabulous weeks!
> 
> <3


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: canon-typical violence.

“Oh for crying out loud,” Natasha muttered as she and Cosima walked through the crowded department store, Natasha’s hood up and Cosima’s hair loose around her face, her knuckles white on the straps of the _Victoria’s Secret_ bag she’d been carrying since the hospital. “Stop _looking around.”_

“I’m sorry,” Cosima hissed back, “But we’re kind of _on the run from SHIELD.”_

_“Exactly,”_ Natasha snapped back, somehow managing to transform her face into a winning smile the moment some guy glanced at the pair of them. “Stop looking like it, or we’ll get caught even sooner.”

Cosima stumbled again, and Natasha blew out an irritated breath.

“I’m sorry, these _heels--”_

“Heel first, then toe. Visualize a straight line and take smaller steps.” Cosima did, deciding to deal with the weirdness of being taught how to walk in high heels by a Russian assassin later, and managed to walk evenly and smile semi-convincingly as she and Natasha strolled into a Apple store.

“The drive has a level 6 homing program,” Natasha explained in an undertone, slipping the drive from her sleeve into her palm as she did. Cosima nodded, trying to appear like she was interested in the laptops while she checked the exits. “So as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will be able to track us down.” 

“Okay,” Cosima murmured, resting one arm on the table as she glanced around again. “How long would that take?”

“Nine minutes from now.” 

“Wait-- _Nat--”_ Natasha just raised an eyebrow, the flash drive already inserted and her fingers already flying across the keyboard.

The next thirty seconds passed achingly slowly, Cosima pretending to be wholly engrossed in picking yellow nail polish off her fingers (poor Kyrstal’s manicure hadn’t even lasted two days) before leaning down to whisper in Natasha’s ear.

“See anything?” 

“Well, Fury was right--someone’s hiding something to do with the ship,” Natasha said, not even pausing in her typing. “There’s an AI protecting the drive, it keeps rewriting itself to override my commands.” 

“Well can’t you just--” Cosima waved a hand vaguely in the air. “Over-override it?” 

Natasha glanced up from the computer to give Cosima a scathing look. “What exactly do you think I’ve been trying to do?” 

“I’m just--” 

Natasha shook her head. “I’m gonna try running a tracer. It was developed by SHIELD to track hostile malware--so if we can’t read it, we should at least be able to find out where it came from.” 

The scrolling text on the screen winked out, replaced with a map of the world. The image narrowed to the northern hemisphere, then the United States--

“Can I help you guys with anything?” 

Cosima froze. The storeworker, oblivious, grinned.

“No, no, we’re good,” came the bubbly bright of Natasha--no, Nattie, the version of Natasha who’d taken Cosima to the nail salon--and Cosima felt an arm being slipped through hers. She was still too nervous to turn and look. “We’re just planning a totally epic road trip!”

“Totes,” Cosima echoed through gritted teeth. “Just me and my...sister?” 

“Aw man, I was just about to guess that! You guys look so _similar.”_

Natasha glanced at the man from underneath her dark hoodie. Cosima tugged on the bottom of her magenta dress and nodded.

“So, where you guys thinking of stopping? The Big Apple? The Boston Common?” 

“Um…” Cosima tried not to look too obvious as she looked at the screen. “New Jersey…?”

She tried to smile.

“Cool, cool. Well, you just let me know if you need anything--I’ve been Aaron--” 

“Yeah,” Cosima said quickly. “Yeah, totes.” 

Aaron nodded, still smiling. The smile on Cosima’s face felt like it was about to shatter, but finally-- _finally_ \--Aaron wandered off, and Cosima turned straight back to Natasha.

“You said nine--” 

“Breathe,” Natasha snapped back, hitting a few last keys before leaning back. “There we go.” 

Cosima looked over at the screen, and despite Natasha’s orders, felt her breath catch in her throat.

“What, you know it?” 

“Y-yeah,” Cosima said, clearing her throat. “Once upon a time.” She shook her head, straightening up and tightening her grip on her _Victoria’s Secret_ bag. “We have to go.” 

Natasha snatched the flash drive out of the laptop and slipped it back up into her sleeve, quick enough that even Cosima nearly missed it.

SHIELD’s STRIKE teams were brilliant at black ops on foreign soil and slipping into terrorist hideouts, but they were really not designed for strip malls. Cosima spotted the tight knots of black-clad, blank-faced operatives before she’d even stepped out of the store.

“It looks like a standard team,” Cosima whispered to Natasha as they headed out, snagging a hairtie off her wrist and going to tie her hair up. “Two behind, two across, two headed this way. I’ll run at them, you--” 

“Shut up,” Natasha hissed back, pulling out a StarkPhone from God-knows-where. “Put your arm through mine and look at the phone.” 

Cosima ducked her head, forcing her gaze away from the teams heading for them. “Nat--” 

Natasha pivoted smoothly on one foot, putting her taller body between Cosima and the operatives, forcing them both to turn their backs on them. “So can you _believe_ he sent me _this--”_

The team walked by, muttering into their comms. Natasha dropped Cosima’s arm.

“That was good.” 

“Have more faith in the idiocy of SHIELD agents,” Natasha muttered back. “Head for the east exit, nice and casual. We’ll take the escalator--let me explain so you won’t be frightened, it’s a type of moving stair--” 

“They were invented in the _1800s,_ Natasha,” Cosima sighed back, though she couldn’t stop the small smile tugging at her lips. “Do you know any history at all?” 

“You’re the historical figure here.” 

They made it to the escalators without incident, Cosima feeling ridiculously exposed in bright magenta and heels but feeling ridiculously thankful for Natasha’s steadying presence. The crowd moved around them in ebbs and flows, none of them paying the pair a slightest bit of attention. 

Cosima started to hope they’d make it out of the building--and then she spotted the pair of operatives on the stairs.

“Natasha,” she murmured, glancing around them. The escalator was packed, Cosima and Natasha in the middle--the collateral damage would be _massive._

“I see them,” Natasha replied evenly. The operatives were getting closer, and Cosima’s muscles started tensing instinctively. “I’m going to start crying now.” 

“You--what?” 

Natasha flung her arms around Cosima’s neck, sniffing and half-wailing. _“Text!_ He broke up with me over _text!”_

“Um,” Cosima said eloquently, remembering to bow her head as they passed the STRIKE team. “That...is terrible?” 

_“Totally,”_ Natasha gasped, before unwinding her arms and turning to face the front of the escalator, face as blank as ever.

“Public displays of emotion make people uncomfortable enough to look away?”

“There’s hope for you yet, Cosima.” Natasha frowned. “We will need a car.” 

“Yeah?” Cosima smirked. “I think I can help with that.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I can honestly say you’ve surprised me,” Natasha said, leaning back and putting her feet up on the car’s dashboard as they drove into New Jersey. “Who taught Captain America how to steal a car?”

“My sisters,” Cosima laughed, pushing the speed limit as they cruised down the highway. “I did have a life before the war, you know--though honestly, I only learned to steal cars so I could pick them up after getting into fights.”

“Committing crimes to--” 

“To stop my sisters committing more crimes, yeah.” Cosima grinned. “Sarah and Helena--between the two of them, the whole police force didn’t stand a chance.” 

“Sarah and Helena?” 

“The twins. And then there’s Tony, Alison--the most ragag little family you ever met.” 

“And Delphine.” 

“Yeah, I--” Cosima cleared her throat, hands tightening and relaxing on the steering wheel. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” 

“People say it helps.”

_“You_ say that,” Cosima shot back with a raised eyebrow. “And you say a lot of things, most of them lies.”

“Doesn’t make them untrue.”

“Sure, Nat.” Cosima huffed a humorless laugh.

“Truth is a matter of circumstance,” Natasha replied, like a memorized speech. “It’s not all things to all people all the time. Neither am I.”

“Sounds hard.”

“It’s gotten me this far.”

“I think I’ve gotten a bit farther, honestly,” Cosima chuckled, and Natasha made a sound that might’ve been a laugh in response. “But it is a little hard to trust you when I don’t even know who you are.”

Natasha stared steadily at Cosima, her green eyes a shade more inscrutable than they usually were. “Who do you want me to be?”

“Yourself.”

Natasha shook her head, the smile on her lips looking anything but happy. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Captain.”

They rounded a corner and stopped the car outside a dark, deserted area marked with _NO TRESPASSING_ signs. The high fence and barbed wire were hardly an obstacle to either Natasha or Cosima, and it was a matter of seconds before they were in. Cosima reached into her _Victoria’s Secret_ bag, pulling out her old familiar shield and slipping it on.

Something told her she would need it.

The abandoned place felt like it was holding its breath, and Cosima copied it, moving silently over the overgrown grass. Grey buildings lurked around them, silent and shuttered, but there--those were the barracks, that was a munitions storage. 

“The signal came from here.” 

That was the gym.

Cosima walked over, running a finger down the nailed up doors. She could see the inside of the building perfectly--she could see the soldiers, racist and idiots, doing jumping jacks, and Peggy Carter twisting one of them into a headlock that was _so_ satisfying to see.

And there was Delphine, her lab coat and high heels before any of it happened, crossing the room with her head held high.

_“I hadn’t realized there were other women working on the Project either,”_ and a younger, smaller Cosima grinned, already stuck on the blonde who’d just strolled into her life. 

_“You and me both.”_

_“Delphine.”_

_“Cosima.”_

_“Enchantée,”_ and Cosima could almost feel Delphine’s hand in her own.

“Cosima,” Natasha cut in, shattering the image. Cosima left her hand flat against the door for half a moment more, then turned to face her. “This is a dead end. Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must’ve used a router to throw people off.” 

“No,” Cosima replied, taking a step back and looking around the camp. “No, this is Camp Lehigh. It’s where I--it’s where Project Rebirth really got started. We were led here for a reason.” 

“Let me know if you find one,” Natasha said, moving off to make her own investigations. Cosima turned her back on the gym, wandering through the army base and her own ghosts.

She’d spent enough time here--not a lot, maybe, but enough--and when something in the back of her mind whispered _not right,_ she paid attention.

“Cosima?” 

“That building,” she explained, pointing at one of the munition stores they’d passed. “It’s--something’s not right.” 

“Wanna be a little more specific?” Natasha asked, but she was moving over to it already. 

“It’s just a feeling,” Cosima sighed. 

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Natasha had pulled up something on her phone, glancing from it to the rest of the camp. “This building is against regulation--too close to the barracks.” 

“Good old feelings.” Cosima quickly ducked around Natasha, marching up to the doors and them open.

They creaked impressively, exposing hallways full of darkness and cobwebs. Whoever was pushing leading them here clearly had a traditional flair for the dramatic and foreboding--like something out of a thriller from when Cosima was younger. Her footsteps echoed through the halls--Natasha never seemed to make a noise--and a few bluish lights flickered on near her feet.

_Deserted my ass._

They made it into a larger room, long-disused lights flickering to life overhead.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t a munitions storage. The total lack of weaponry proved that.

But the files, the research stations, the photos of Howard and Peggy, Peggy’s picture just a bit below his--and the massive circular eagle on the wall--

“This is SHIELD.” Cosima grinned, taking a few steps in a half-circle before crossing over to the pictures. She pulled the picture of Peggy off the wall, releasing a massive cloud of dust, before rehanging it, putting her picture just as high as the others.

“You care that much about the girl?” 

“Agent Peggy Carter,” Cosima corrected, stepping back to explore the rest of the room. “And is it just me, or is something wrong with those dust lines on that bookcase?” 

The dust hadn’t quite settled evenly across the bookcase. It was lighter, more spread out, like it had been disturbed and then quickly covered back up.

Like the wall-mounted, immovable bookcases had moved.

Natasha followed as Cosima ran her hands over the empty shelves, searching for irregularities or bumps. It wasn’t long before her fingers bumped into a small, almost-unnoticeable switch in the side of the wall. Grinning perhaps a bit too triumphantly, she flicked it. 

WIth a shuddering groan, the shelves began to pull back, slowly opening to reveal another dark, dusty room, bare except for a large pair of keypad-locked elevator doors. 

“Are they just trying to check off _all_ the villain cliches?” Cosima stepped forward, Krystal’s heels clacking on the ground. “I mean, they’ve already got a secret base, what’s so important that they have to hide the elevator?” 

Natasha appeared at Cosima’s side, scanning the keypad with her phone. Almost instantly, the phone projected a set of most likely keycodes onto the pad, and Natasha began pressing buttons. On the second combination, the doors opened. 

Cosima and Natasha glanced at each other, and in unison stepped in. 

The cramped elevator moved in starts and stops, the lights barely staying on as it slowly made its way downward. With a massive jolt, it finally landed, the lights blinking out just as the doors began to open. 

“I really hate elevators,” Cosima sighed. Natasha smirked, sliding around Cosima and into the new surrounding room. A heartbeat later, the lights came on.

Monitors. Dust covered screens, old beige boxes full of electronics, the walls covered in cabinets with glass doors full of spools of tape and switches that filled the room almost entirely, save for a clearing around the largest monitor. The machines disappeared back into the depths of the room that the lights didn’t reach, beyond where even Cosima’s enhanced eyes could see. The room must’ve run underneath the entire base.

“What the hell is this?” 

“A computer.” 

“I thought computers were--” Cosima gestured to Natasha’s phone and the sleeve where the flash drive was concealed. “You know, not filling an entire room.” 

“The ones today, yes,” Natasha explained, looking around the room with the slightest hint of confusion. “This is one of the very first ones. From 1948, 1950? It’s _ancient--”_

“Oh, thanks.” 

“--far too old for this to be where the signal came from--” Natasha continued, before cutting herself off. Right in front of the largest monitor sat a thin silver box, new and shining like a present. This looked more like the computers Cosima had been introduced to after waking up, with a port waiting for the flash drive and everything. 

_This is a trap._

Cosima knew it, and she knew that Natasha must’ve realized it long before they’d even made it to Lehigh. But she followed anyway as Natasha strode over to the port, flipping the drive once, twice between her fingers before plugging it in.

There was a beat of silence and then, with a creak like an old dragon waking up, the machines that packed the room whirred alive. With clunks and moans, each part slotted into place until the entire room was thrumming around them. 

An ancient camera mounted above the largest screen slowly rose and focused on them.

Green text flowed across the screen. 

_INITIATE SYSTEM?_

“Y-e-s spells yes,” Natasha quipped, typing out the letters as she spoke, a grin tugging up one corner of her mouth. “Shall we play a game?” 

“Seriously? _Saw?”_ Cosima asked. “Quoting that creepy serial killer movie?”

“Who the hell introduced you to _Saw?_ The quote’s from--”

A high-pitched whine interrupted them, drawing both their attentions back to the screen. Slowly, green lights blinked on, forming a blurry shape.

“Niehaus, Cosima Elizabeth.” Cosima froze, taking a slow step toward the screen. The pitch of the hum in the air almost sounded smug as the high pitched, distorted voice continued. “Born 1918.” With a creaking groan, the camera turned to face Natasha. “Romanoff, Natalia Alianova. Born…” Lights continued to wink on, the shape turning into a vague egg-shape. It tilted, like a child looking at a pretty bug. “1984.” 

“It’s a recording,” Natasha muttered, staring unblinking at the screen.” 

“I am not a recording, _fraulein.”_ The humming of the computers increased in pitch. The shape on the screens started to look like a face. “I may not be the man I was when the Captain and her scientist took me prisoner in 1945, but I _am.”_

Cosima felt sick.

“You know this thing?” Natasha asked, sounding as close to disgusted as Cosima had ever heard her. 

“Zola.” Cosima swallowed, staring at the two round circles on the screen. Glasses.

Glasses that Cosima had seen on the face of a short, pudgy man so long ago, as he stood at Johann Schmidt’s side.

“Armin Zola. A German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. Who helped found HYDRA,” Cosima spat. “And who’s _dead.”_

“First correction, I am Swiss,” the computer--Zola--said, and Cosima was ready to punch the stupid monitor’s lights out. “Second, I have never been more alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Posting this chapter in a bit of a rush, so not much of an author's note this time--just that comments and criticism are always welcome and encouraged, and I'm on tumblr at elizaskylers so come say hi!
> 
> <3


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: canon-typical violence

_"I have never been more alive."_

“Yeah, the fact that you’re an image on a computer really proves that you’re living vicariously,” Cosima snapped. “You’re like, what, a stimulation? A-a hologram? This century,” she added, turning to Natasha, “This century has those, right?” 

From the look on Natasha’s face, they didn’t--at least, not this good of one. 

“I am so much more than a video, _Captain,”_ Zola said, the sneer making Cosima’s neck crawl. “But shall I explain it a bit slower, for your benefit?” 

“Oh, fu--”

“In 1972,” he continued smoothly, “I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. But my mind--that was worth saving. On 200,000 feet of databanks.”

_Databanks--_

Cosima looked away from the monitor, at the machines surrounding them, at the black tape that ran through all of them, the wires connecting them, like neurons--

_Oh God._

“Oh God,” she whispered out loud, wonder warring with revulsion at where, exactly, she was. “We’re in his _brain.”_

“Very good, _Kommandant fraulein._ I am almost impressed.” 

“How the hell did you get here? It wasn’t because of your charm--” 

“On the contrary. I was invited.”

“Operation Paperclip,” Natasha interjected, glancing at Cosima’s face before continuing. “After World War II, SHIELD recruited German scientists with...strategic value.” 

“They thought I could help their cause,” Zola continued, before Cosima could respond. “I also helped my own.” 

“What, HYDRA?” Cosima snorted, shaking her head. “Dude, HYDRA died with Red Skull. I was there.” 

“But you were not there for the aftermath. Cut off one head,” Zola smirked, and the fuzzy green image of his face split in two. “Two more shall take its place.” 

Cosima unconsciously settled into a military stance, even as her voice dripped with disbelief. “Yeah, show, don’t tell.” 

“Very well. Accessing archive,” Zola said, and the smaller screens around them woke up, black and white images flickering across them too fast to see before it settled on a photo of Johann Schmidt, pre-botched serum, a Nazi flag fluttering behind him.

“HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity cannot be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist.”

The pictures changed, images of soldiers pouring off boats, people ripping down posters with Red Skull’s face on them, Cosima and the Commandos, charging into a HYDRA base.

“The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly,” Zola continued, and Cosima snorted. Burning posters of Hitler, surrendering soldiers, and men who Cosima didn’t recognize but looked like world leaders sitting proudly at a conference somewhere.

All the history Cosima had missed.

“After the war, SHIELD was founded.” Howard and Peggy appeared on the screen, followed by the familiar SHIELD logo. “And I was recruited. And the new HYDRA grew.”

The logo flickered once, twice, and was replaced with the familiar HYDRA symbol of a skull and octopus legs. Zola’s green projection of a face twisted in what might have been a smile.

“A _beautiful_ parasite inside SHIELD. For 70 years, HYDRA has been feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history would not cooperate, history was changed.”

Cosima watched the screens flick from scene to scene, fires and protests, screaming and funerals, and the same figure, over and over. A face in a mask, a woman in the shadows.

A metal arm.

“SHIELD would have stopped you,” Natasha protested, stepping level with Cosima. “You couldn’t have--” 

“Oh, _fraulein,”_ Zola chastised. “Accidents will happen.”

Howard’s face appeared, underneath the headline _GENIUS INVENTOR AND WIFE KILLED IN CAR CRASH._ Fury followed, the word _DECEASED_ unceremoniously stamped across his face. The old, familiar feeling of rage--the first real feeling she could remember having in a long time--rose up inside of Cosima.

“HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once a purification process is complete--” 

“Just shut up,” Cosima snapped, hand flexing around the handles of her shield. “Shut up. Listen to you--so you’re the new Schmidt, then? Insane and eugenical and delusional?” 

“You may call me deluded all you like,” Zola said, like he was doing her a huge favor. “And yet it will not make Director Fury any less dead, or our new HYDRA any less primed to rule. Our new world order will rise, _Kommandant fraulein._ We have won. You have failed.” 

“The drive,” Natasha said quickly, placing a warning hand on Cosima’s arm. “What’s on it?”

“A plan called Project Insight requires insight.” Zola’s voice oozed with condescension and Cosima was ready to punch him in the face, hologram or not. “So, I wrote an algorithm.” 

“What kind of algorithm? What does it do?” 

“Oh, it is a truly beautiful thing. A scientist like you might even come close to appreciating it fully, _Kommandant,”_ he added, inclining his face toward Cosima. “Unfortunately, you will be too dead to do so.” 

“And what the hell is that supposed to--” 

Behind them, all the doors slammed shut.

“Cosima.” Natasha’s voice was deadly serious, her eyes not moving from the phone in her hand. “We’ve got a bogey--short range ballistic. Thirty seconds, tops.” 

“Who fired it?” 

Natasha looked up, her eyes meeting Cosima’s, and there was Natasha’s version of shock and confusion written on her face.

And Cosima knew.

“SHIELD.” 

“I have been stalling, I’m afraid.” Cosima ignored him, Krystal’s dress splitting along the seams as she launched herself across the floor, yanking up section of grating and throwing it across the room. Natasha was right behind her, sliding into the small space.

God knows what the crawlspace had been intended to store, but now it was the only thing that might give them half a chance.

“Oh, admit it _Kommandant,”_ Zola sighed, like a disappointed teacher, and despite herself Cosima looked back at him. “You’re a smart woman. You know it is better this way.”

She stared at him for half a moment. He seemed to smile. 

Cosima flung herself over Natasha, her shield raised to cover them both.

And the world exploded.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Soldier waited.

The house was a secure one _(three potential weaknesses--one exploited to enter, the other two in the sightlines. Floor-to-ceiling windows made of missile-proof glass. The location concealed from anyone who had the potential to be a liability)._

The Soldier was not a liability. The Soldier wouldn’t remember the address for long.

The Soldier sat stiffly on a comfortable couch, behind a glass coffee table, and waited.

The sound of footsteps had the Soldier beginning to reach for a gun and dismissing it in the space of half a blink _(echoing wrong for a soldier’s boots, the sound too loud for a stealth team, no attempts at subtlety--heels on hardwood. Conclusion: Secretary Rachel Duncan._

_Primary objective: obey)_

“The timetable has changed,” Secretary Duncan began before fully entering the room. Her perfectly manicured nails rested on the file she was looking at instead of the Soldier. “There are two targets, level six. They survived a missile--and cost me Zola.” There was a second of the Secretary looking like she’d bitten something bitter, and then it was gone. She flipped the file open and tossed it over, the file sliding across the table.

Images labelled _Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna_ and _Sadler (Niehaus), Cosima_ smiled up at the Soldier.

“You have ten hours to take care of them.”

The Soldier glanced down at the files, the faces, and said nothing.

“I--Madam Secretary--I’m so sorry, I forgot…” A small woman in a maid’s uniform stood in the doorway, eyes flicking, panicked, from the Soldier to Duncan. 

“What are you waiting for?” Secretary Duncan didn’t turn around as she spoke. “Do your job.” 

The maid slumped to the ground, wide-eyed and silent, a red circle blossoming between her eyes. The gun was warm in the Soldier’s metal hand.

The Soldier glanced down at the body, the face, and felt nothing.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Krystal hummed to herself as she slipped out the back door of the nail salon, purse slung over one arm as she started to make her way down the alley leading to the parking lot, heels clicking against the pavement.

“Hello, Krystal.” 

She froze, squinting into the shadows the voice had come from. Her hand drifted toward the mace in her bag.

“Please don’t run.” 

_“Cosima?”_ Krystal took a cautious step forward, not totally abandoning the mace. “Ohmygod, I _totally_ thought you were like, a serial killer!” 

“Sorry--” 

“I could’ve _maced_ you!” 

“I don’t doubt it.” Cosima emerged from the darkness, her smile turning into an apologetic grimace when she saw Krystal’s eyes widen. “I, uh, kinda ruined your dress.” 

‘Ruined’ was a bit of an understatement. The dress had split at nearly all the seams, stretched and ripped where it wasn’t burned. Cosima herself wasn’t at her best, hair tangled and dull around her face, and a few cuts and bruises that her healing hadn’t gotten around to yet.

“What _happened?”_

“Um.” Cosima winced. “Look, Krystal, I’m sorry but we don’t have a lot of time. You might be in danger.” 

“Danger?” Krystal asked, her voice very small. “Why me?” 

“Um,” Cosima said again, hating to do this and trying to find a gentle way to put it. “I’ve made some people really angry. And they’re looking for me, and I know we barely know each other, but they might know we’ve had contact--” 

“Because you’re Captain America.” 

Cosima blinked, startled. “Um.” 

“Am I not supposed to know that?” Krystal sucked in a small, panicked breath. “Are you gonna kill me for knowing that?” 

“No, no,” Cosima said quickly, trying to both reassure Krystal and signal that her voice was getting loud. “I just didn’t know that you’d figured it out. I was kind of trying to ease you into it. Gently.” 

“Oh.” Krystal relaxed a bit at that, though her eyes kept darting around the alley. “I mean, it wasn’t that hard to figure out, y’know? I do watch the news and stuff. I knew you’d been found, and I was on a shopping trip in Manhattan with my boyfriend, Hector, when those chitty-things came out of the sky. Hector died,” she whispered, her eyes welling up, and Cosima reached out to rub Krystal’s arm. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Krystal sniffed, blinking rapidly. “Um, anyway. I’m not like, _totally_ stupid, y’know? I really did do a project on you in high school. I thought it was you when you came into the salon, except then I thought it couldn’t be, except then it had to be because you said you work with Nattie, and Nattie’s _not_ a photographer.”

“She’s not?” 

“Duh,” Krystal scoffed. “I dated a photographer for like, two years, okay? I know photographers. They definitely don’t disappear for weeks, or wear out manicures the way she does.”

Cosima wanted to laugh--super-spy extraordinaire and legend Natasha Romanoff being found out by a salon worker--but something rustled behind her and she whipped around, every inch on guard again.

“Krystal, I’m sorry, we’re running out of time. Nat--Nattie and I are trying to find a safe house somewhere outside the city. You need to come with us--we can protect you.” 

“No.” 

Cosima stared. Of all the responses she’d imagined getting from Krystal, this wasn’t one of them.

“Krystal, you’re in danger--” 

“I get that, okay?” Krystal interrupted, holding up her hands. “Bad guys are after you! The world is ending! But I can’t just run off, I’d lose my job!” 

Cosima sighed. “Krystal, listen--” 

“No, _you_ need to listen!” She looked dangerously close to tearing up again, so Cosima fell silent. “You’re a superhero, okay? The whole world needs you. So you have to stay safe, so you can save it, you know? I do _nails,”_ Krystal huffed. “But really good nails. They help people. They don’t save them, but they--they make them happy. Even if just for a little bit. It’s not a lot, but it’s all I do--it’s all I _can_ do. And if I run away, I’ll get fired, and I can’t even do that. So I _have_ to stay. It’s all I’ve got.” 

“Krystal,” Cosima said, as gently as she could. “They’ll come for you.” 

“But that’s the thing,” Krystal said, smiling even as she fished in her purse for a tissue. “They won’t. Someone who looks like me, talks like me? I’m totally forgettable. They won’t even look twice.” She laughed once, softly and tearily. “I guess it’s kind of like a superpower, huh?”

Cosima stepped forward and pulled Krystal into a hug. Krystal squeaked in surprise before relaxing, her arms wrapping around Cosima and her tears soaking into Cosima’s mess of a dress.

“You’re a superhero the same as the rest of us, okay?” Cosima whispered, waiting until she felt Krystal nod. “You’re incredibly special and so, so important, okay?” 

Krystal sniffed and nodded, wiping tears off her cheeks as she stepped back. “Nobody’s ever told me anything like that before.” 

“Well, it’s true,” Cosima said, her tone turning lightly scolding as Krystal shook her head. “Hey, nobody’s allowed to argue with me.” 

“Because you’re freaking Captain America.” 

“Because I’m freaking Captain America.” 

“You need to go, don’t you?” Krystal took a half-step back, glancing around. “Do you need a distraction? I can scream or faint or--” 

“No, that’s okay,” Cosima said quickly. “I don’t want to include you in this any more then I have to.”

“Okay, well--” Krystal rifled through her purse for a moment, scribbling something on a bright pink sticky note before pressing it to Cosima’s chest. “You know what a cell phone is, right? That’s my number. I know I can’t help you or anything, but just--if you can, give me a call and let me know you’re okay?” 

“I will,” Cosima said, surprising herself by tearing up a little. “I will, Krystal, I promise, okay?” 

“Keep your promises.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Almost left without you.”

“Shut up, no you didn’t,” Cosima replied, slipping into the car and reaching over to start the engine. 

“Well?” Natasha asked, glancing meaningfully around the car. 

“Krystal’s not coming.” Cosima looked over at Natasha, who looked the closest to exhausted Cosima had ever seen her. “How are you?” 

“Unimportant. We need to get somewhere safe.” 

Cosima took in the cuts on Natasha’s arms and the soot still on her face, and bit back her sarcastic response of _gee, what a good idea._ “We could call Stark.” 

“SHIELD monitors Stark constantly, and even more after the Battle of Manhattan,” Natasha countered. They’ll be expecting us to go there.”

“Shit, that rules out Banner too.” 

“He and Clint are out of the country, and Thor’s offworld.” Natasha shook her head, wincing. “Not that we have a way to contact them without SHIELD knowing.”

Cosima frowned. “We got rid of our phones--” 

“But they still have theirs.” 

_“Fuck.”_ Cosima was holding onto the wheel tightly enough to make it groan. “Is there anyone we can contact that the people who want to kill us don’t know about?” 

“Do I look like someone who has a lot of friends?” Natasha asked, then paused. “Well, I did do recon on Krystal, we could break into her house--” 

_“No,”_ Cosima snapped. “She’s a civilian. If we’re not protecting her, we’re not getting her involved.” 

“You know, for someone who claims not to be a soldier…” 

“Shut up, _Nattie.”_

Natasha made a faint nose, turning to stare out the windshield again. “Okay, so are there any non-civilian friends out there we can trust?”

Cosima bit her lip. “I might know a guy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the update's a little late, I had to do load-in for a show I'm in, but better late than never, right? I hope you all enjoyed, and again, none of this would be possible without Noelle and Chaya (therenegadegabbai on tumblr), who keep me sane and keep me going and really are too wonderful for words. Comments are always welcome and criticism encouraged, and I'm literally always thinking about this fic so come talk to me about it on tumblr at elizaskylers if that's your style.
> 
> Have wonderful weeks! <3


	10. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Canon-typical violence, death, and fighting.

“Congratulations! You’re number one on the list of people who probably won’t try to kill us!”

Sam Wilson blinked slowly. Cosima’s bright grin faltered a bit.

“Please don’t try to kill us.” 

She knew that the scene wasn’t the best. Cosima was still smoke-stained, and even if most of her injuries had healed, her energy had been sapped in the process, and she was trying very hard not to lean too much against Sam’s doorframe. Natasha was on edge next to her, not even trying to hide the way she was checking their surroundings. It was at least partially a tactic to intimidate Sam, but a night of driving and constant vigilance hadn’t been easy on either of them.

“I’m not gonna try to kill you,” Sam said, and stepped aside to let them in.

“I’m really sorry about all this,” Cosima said as she walked in, hoping he could tell how sincere she was. “I didn’t want to get you involved--” 

“Slow down,” Sam interrupted, locking the door and pulling the curtains shut without prompting. “Start from the beginning. What the hell happened to you?” 

“Um, most recently? Missile,” Cosima replied, her shoulders relaxing for the first time in hours. “Before that? A Nazi in a computer, a gang of STRIKE operatives, falling through a skylight and pissing off a secret government organization. Oh, and pirates, but that was unrelated.” 

“It wasn’t, actually,” Natasha interrupted. She’d made it over to the other side of the room while Sam and Cosima were talking, running her hands over the window locks and checking sightlines. “Massive national government conspiracies tend to get their fingers in everything.” She looked over her shoulder, giving Sam a wolfish smile. “Natasha Romanoff. Nice to meet you.” 

“Sam--” 

“Wilson, yeah, I know.” Natasha glanced around the room. “You got a shower?”

“Yeah, second on the--” Sam stopped, blinking. “You already know, I’ll bet.” 

Natasha’s grin turned a fraction less animalistic. “There’s hope for you yet, Wilson.” 

She disappeared through a doorway in a flash of red hair, leaving Sam and Cosima in her wake.

“Is she always…?” 

“She’s sizing you up. Sort of like how a boa constrictor checks if she can actually eat you before attacking.”

“That metaphor really doesn’t make me feel better.”

“It’s inaccurate, anyway. She could definitely eat you.”

“I get that impression.” Sam smiled a little, then gestured to the kitchen. “You wanna sit? Eat?” His look turned serious. “Tell me what’s really going on?”

“Sam, I don’t want--” 

“To get me involved, you said.” He crossed into the kitchen and pulled out one of the chairs at the little table, and Cosima followed and sat automatically. “So give me a hypothetical. Hypothetically, if Captain America were to show up on my doorstep, exhausted and with a lot of people out to kill her, what would’ve happened?”

Cosima sighed, pulling her hair out of its ponytail and running her fingers through the matted strands. “Hypothetically? She would’ve had a really long day.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Nice outfit.”

Natasha strolled into Sam’s guest bedroom, smirking a little. Cosima grinned back, shifting on the bed and raising her arms to show off her outfit. She was as muscular as Sam, if not more, but a good half-foot shorter, making the image of her in Sam’s hoodie and sweatpants quite the sight.

“I feel like a little kid playing dress-up,” she sighed, rolling the sleeves up for the third time. Natasha sat down on a small chair in the corner of the room, still smiling but not really looking at anything as she squeezed water out of her hair. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” 

“Uh huh.” Cosima sat up and leaned forward, brushing her own dark hair off her shoulders. “Seriously. What’s going on?” 

“I…” Natasha shrugged, eyes still sliding around the room. “When I joined SHIELD, I thought I’d found the right path. That I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA.” 

“You couldn’t have known--” 

“No?” The bitterness in Natasha’s voice took Cosima aback for a moment. “An international spy, dealing in secrets and backstabbing for as long as I can remember, and I couldn’t even tell whose lies I was selling.” 

“HYDRA spent seventy years growing inside SHIELD, planning and perfecting every move and word before you were even born. You can’t blame yourself for any of that.” 

“I can blame myself for the part I played in it.” 

“Natasha--” 

“You saved my life,” Natasha said suddenly, her stance shifting and eyes boring into Cosima’s. “I owe you.” 

“No you don’t,” Cosima said gently. “I was doing what I would’ve done for anyone.” 

“Would you trust me to do it for you?” Natasha leaned forward, that small sign of desperation that would’ve meant near-nothing in anyone else telling Cosima just how much Natasha needed this. “If it came down to it, and I was the only one who could save your life, would you trust me to do it?”

Cosima looked at Natasha, an assassin she’d met two years ago, who she’d seen murder so many people and who she logically knew had killed so many more. The woman who was friends with Krystal and made snarky comments and despite however she framed it as saving her own skin, had dropped everything to help smuggle Cosima to relative safety.

“Yeah,” she promised, not dropping Natasha’s gaze. “Yeah I would.” 

“And you’re being honest?” 

“Oh c’mon, Nat,” Cosima half-laughed. “You know I’m a terrible liar.” 

“That you are,” Natasha chuckled, both hers and Cosima’s shoulders slumping in something that was as close to relief as either could get in this situation. “For someone who died for nothing, you seem quite chipper.”

“Well,” Cosima shrugged. “It was a bad case of death, but it didn’t really stick.” 

A knock at the doorway made them both turn around. Sam stood there, offering them a half-wave. “I made breakfast. If you guys eat that sort of thing.” 

“Hell yeah,” Cosima said, jumping up from the bed. “Oh, uh, let me know how much you spent on food--I’ll pay you back.” 

“You don’t have to--” 

“You’ll want her to,” Natasha interjected. “Ever seen a super-soldier eat?”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time breakfast was finished, the light mood had dispersed entirely. Natasha and Cosima sat across from each other, firing words back and forth at each other. Behind them, Sam washed dishes and acted like he wasn’t listening.

“We have to look into who at SHIELD could launch a domestic missile strike.”

“Duncan,” Natasha said immediately. “Domestic attacks are taken _incredibly_ seriously, the order couldn’t have come from anyone but her.” 

“And she scares me,” Cosima sighed, rubbing her forehead. _“Shit.”_

“I thought nothing scared Captain America.”

“It’s the ice-cold bitch thing she’s got going. And the fact that she fired a missile at us.” 

“That’s fair.” Natasha drummed her fingers against the table. “Duncan also works on the top floor of the most secure building in the world.” 

“But she wasn’t working alone, right?” Cosima leaned forward. “You pulled Zola’s algorithm off the Lemurian Star, right? Jasper Sitwell was there too. He has to be part of this--this algorithm and whatever they’re trying to do with it.” 

Natasha nodded, brow furrowing a fraction. “So what we’re looking for is a way for the nation’s two most wanted to kidnap an officer in broad daylight.” 

“You’ve got something wrong there.” Cosima hadn’t noticed him leaving the room, but she turned to see Sam coming back in, dropping a thick file on the table. You’re not just a team of two.” 

“What’s this?” Natasha asked, sliding the file over and flipping it open. 

“Call it a resume.” 

Natasha’s posture suddenly tensed, and Cosima found herself becoming more alert in response. 

“Is this Bakhlama?” Natasha looked from the files to Sam, pulling out photos and spreading them out on the table. “The Khalid Khandil mission--that was you?” Natasha flipped through a few photos. “Cosima never mentioned you were Pararescue.” 

The photos were all from a Middle Eastern country--Cosima didn’t know the politics of the century well enough to guess which--and all contained Sam, in goggles and uniform, most of them with another man at his side.

“Is this Riley?” Cosima asked, pulling the photo closer. Sam nodded, a look that Cosima knew too well crossing his face. 

“Yeah. That’s him.” 

“I heard about this mission--they couldn’t bring choppers in because of the RPGs,” Natasha continued, bringing the attention back to the files. “What did you use? A stealth chute?”

“Not exactly.” Sam pulled out a thinner file, handing it to Natasha. “I used these.” 

Natasha flipped open the file and froze for half a second before looking up at Sam, a slow smile growing on her face. “The Captain sold you short.” 

Cosima took the file from Natasha, looking at the pictures inside for a second before a laugh started bubbling out of her. 

“Are you _serious?”_ She looked at Sam, who was grinning now. “Are you--she tells me not to get sci fi ideas about this century, and--” Cosima stared at the pictures and laughed again. “I thought you were a pilot.” 

“Hey man, I said Air Force. I never said pilot.” 

Cosima giggled once more, running a finger over the pictures, before sobering. “Sam, I know where you’re going with this, but I--I can’t ask you to do this.” 

“So don’t ask me,” Sam replied. “I’m offering.” 

“You got out for a good reason--”

“And Captain America needs help. There isn’t a better reason to get back in.” 

Cosima shook her head, a grin growing on her own face. “If you’re sure about this…” She tapped the photo, still a little giddy at the idea. “Where can we get one of these?”

“Well, the last one is at Fort Meade,” Sam explained, wincing a little. “Behind three guarded gates and a 12-inch steel wall.” 

Natasha didn’t grin, but there was a distinctly predatory and gleeful gleam in her eye. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima and Natasha were waiting on the rooftop of a 15-story building when Jasper Sitwell arrived.

Or rather, when he was unceremoniously shoved toward them by Sam.

“We’ll take it from here, Sam,” Cosima said, nodding briefly toward him before grabbing Sitwell by the lapels, dragging him across the roof. 

“What is this--” 

“Zola’s algorithm.” Cosima cut him off quickly, pushing him closer to the roof’s edge. “What is it?” 

“I’ve never heard of it.” 

“Right. The Lemurian Star, then,” Cosima spat, backing him up to the very edge of the roof. Natasha followed silently, standing a few steps away. “What were you doing there?”

“Throwing up. I get seasick.” 

_“Don’t bullshit me--”_

“I’m not scared of you, Captain,” Sitwell fired back, glancing nervously behind him but sounding confident all the same. “It’s an impressive little display, I’ll admit--the kidnapping, the rooftop--but do you really expect me to be frightened? I’ve read your files, I’ve seen the footage.” He grinned, adjusting his glasses. “Throwing me off a roof isn’t your style.” 

Cosima held his gaze, her hair whipping around her face in the wind. “See, here’s the thing Sitwell, you don’t know me at all. And you _really_ don’t know my partner.”

“What--” 

Natasha stepped forward, and kicked Sitwell soundly in the chest. He yelped in a very undignified way as he fell.

“You know,” she added, standing at Cosima’s side.”This building is what one might call a skyscraper. I know the height can be frightening--” 

“I grew up in Brooklyn, Nat. If there’s one thing that’s never changed about New York, it’s the tall buildings.” Cosima took a deep breath and frowned a little before continuing. “The air quality though, let me tell you--” 

A distant scream grew steadily louder, and then Sam appeared, clutching the back of Sitwell’s suit in both hands.

On his back was a pair of wings.

They were spread wide, black and mechanical but light and nearly delicate-looking despite that, temporarily blotting out the sun as he arced above them, dropping Sitwell and circling briefly before landing neatly on the roof, the wings tucking themselves away into a small pack on his back.

His eyes were hidden by orange-tinted goggles, but it was hard not to notice the deep scowl Sam directed toward Sitwell.

“Zola…” Sitwell’s chest was heaving as he crouched on the rooftop, scrabbling at the ground but making no effort to stand, much less look anyone in the eye. “Zola’s algorithm is a program for choosing Insight’s targets.” 

_Insight._ It felt like years ago that Fury had first shown her Project Insight--the brand-new helicarriers, and all their shiny new guns. Guns that needed something to aim at. 

“What targets?” she demanded, half-ready to throw him off the roof himself. “Tell me!”

“You!” Sitwell shouted back, raising a shaking hand to point. “A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a-a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner--” Cosima’s teeth ground together, even as ice settled in her stomach. “--Steven Strange, anyone who’s a threat to HYDRA--now or in the future.” 

“The future?” Cosima scoffed. “Don’t tell me you’re as delusional as Schmidt--”

“Of course it can see the future, how can it _not?”_ Sitwell looked up at them then, an almost-incredulous smirk on his face, even as his hands trembled. “The 21st century is a digital book. All Zola did was teach HYDRA how to read. You--Your bank accounts, medical history, voting patterns, every phone call, every email, every damn grade you’ve ever gotten! Your entire past is there for anyone to see. Zola’s algorithm uses that to predict the future.”

“And then?”

“I’m dead,” Sitwell whispered, pressing his shaking hands to his face. “Duncan is going to skin me. I‘m dead--” 

Cosima grabbed Sitwell’s tie and hauled him up, Sitwell stumbling over his own feet as she backed him on the roof’s edge again, her hand fisted in the material around his throat. _“And. Then?”_

“They _die!”_

Cosima slowly released Sitwell’s shirt and he stumbled away from the edge, falling back to his knees as he rubbed at his throat.

“The helicarriers,” he gasped, not daring to look at Cosima anymore. “The Insight helicarriers, they-they take care of the problems. A few million at a time.” 

“Prob--” Cosima hauled Sitwell to his feet again, the taller man quailing under her anger. “They’re _people!_ People and you’re killing them!”

“Okay--”

“Say it! Admit--” 

“Cosima.” Natasha’s voice was like a scalpel. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Nat--”

“Not. Now,” she replied, no inflection or emotion in her voice. “We’ll deal with him later.”

Cosima huffed, but shoved Sitwell toward Sam, who grabbed the man’s arm and held it tight.

“I--I told you everything, I--”

“Shut up,” Sam snapped. “You’re coming with us.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“HYDRA hates leaks, this really is a terrible idea--”

“Yeah,” Cosima muttered, rolling her eyes. “We really couldn’t have gotten that idea from the fifty times you said.” 

“The Insight helicarriers launch in 16 hours,” Natasha said tersely. She was sitting in the back seat next to Sitwell, and it was hard to say who was less happy about the seating arrangements. Next to Cosima, Sam sped the car up a little more. “We’re cutting it a little close here.”

_16 hours until a whole lot of innocent people die._

“I know.” Cosima reached into the backseat, and Natasha dropped a spare hair tie into her open palm. Tying her hair into her signature ponytail, Cosima continued. “We’ll use him to bypass all the security and access the helicarriers directly.”

“You wanna just walk into SHIELD and demand access to the helicarriers? Are you _crazy--”_

There was a small thump on the roof of the car, like a cat landing on it. All four froze and stared up.

Two bullets came through the roof, and Sitwell’s suddenly-lifeless body slumped bonelessly to the side.

_“Fu--”_

_“Down!”_ Natasha vaulted over the front seats, landing in Cosima’s lap and yanking Cosima’s head forward and down. Her foot lashed out, pressing into Sam’s shoulder and shoving him to the side.

Four more bullets fired, peppering the spots were Sam and Cosima’s heads had been moments before.

Sam slammed on the breaks, jolting them all forward, and a dark shape tumbled over the windshield.

The figure rolled with the impact for half a second before throwing out a hand and digging its fingers into the pavement to slow them down.

Metal fingers.

The movements too slow to be anything but deliberate, the figure stood, flexing the metal hand and raising her head.

Behind the black mask and goggles, it was clear she was staring directly into the car.

At them.

“It’s her,” Cosima whispered, while in her lap Natasha pulled out a gun. “It’s _her--”_

Natasha aimed.

Something slammed into the car, the three of them jerking forward with the impact, and the gun clattered to the floor. Sam swore under his breath, twisting the wheel back and forth in an effort to get the car back under control, but the car kept moving forward, too fast.

Straight into the Soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the cliffhanger! I just wanna say, not for the first time, how much I love and appreciate every one of you readers--this story would mean nothing without you <3 And speaking of people without whom this story would be nothing, I just have to thank, again, my beta Noelle and Chaya (therenegadegabbai on tumblr). They take my nonsensical ramblings and turn it into this and they deserve ALL the praise.
> 
> Thank you--again--for reading! Comments, as always, are welcome, and criticism encouraged. I'm on tumblr at elizaskylers and always want to talk, come say hi!


	11. Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Canon-typical violence and fighting.

Half a moment before impact, the Soldier jumped, disappearing for a moment before a thud signaled she’d landed on the roof again. They ducked as best they could, waited for the gunfire--

A metal hand smashed through the windshield, grabbing the steering wheel and separating it from the car entirely.

_“Shit!”_ Sam slammed on the brakes anyway, the car screeching in protest but hardly slowing down. Natasha squirmed beneath Cosima’s arms and snatched up her gun, firing through the new hole in the windshield.

The Soldier leapt away.

“Fuck,” Cosima gasped, “Now what--” 

Something-- _another car, they’re ramming us with another fucking car_ \--slammed into them again, and their uncontrollable car veered sharply to the side, running into--and halfway up--the wall on the side of the overpass. It landed heavily back on four wheels, but it wasn’t going to make it much longer.

The other car rammed them again.

Cosima grabbed her shield and wrapped her arm around Natasha, her free arm shooting out to grab Sam’s shoulder. _“Hold on!”_

Sam didn’t even pause, abandoning the driver’s seat to wrap his arms around Cosima and Natasha. Cosima twisted so the shield was against the door, held both Natasha and Sam as tightly as she could, and waited.

The car ran into them again.

Their own car screeched against the wall, then flipped, and Cosima pulled her shoulder back and _shoved._

The door gave way.

For a heart-stopping moment, all three of them were airborne above the highway, the sounds of cars screeching and gunfire below.

And then they were falling, the metal of the car door squealing and spraying sparks as they skidded along the highway. Somehow, Sam tumbled off, rolling to slow his own momentum as they headed in opposite directions.

_“Sam--”_

“He can handle himself!” Natasha hissed in Cosima’s ear, one hand holding onto Cosima’s sweatshirt to stop her from sprinting after Sam. “We need to--” 

A flicker of movement, and then Cosima shoved Natasha to the side. Natasha didn’t stop to question it, just ran in the direction Cosima had shoved her.

The Soldier aimed.

Cosima barely got her shield up in time.

The shield was great against bullets, deflecting them harmlessly away. It could even take the brunt of a grenade explosion, and only knock its handler off their feet for a moment.

The Soldier didn’t use bullets or a grenade.

The Soldier used a _rocket launcher._

Cosima went flying backwards, her face searing from the heat of the explosion, and didn’t realize she was falling until she slammed into a bus.

_A freaking bus._

Screams split the air as she sailed through the windows, then again as the bus driver lost control. The bus tipped and crashed on its side, and it was all Cosima could do to grit her teeth and wait it out.

Adrenaline was humming through her body, but _damn_ she was going to feel these bruises later.

“Is everyone okay?” she called once she could catch her breath. A little girl started crying and she pulled herself up immediately, brushing glass shards off her arms. “Is anyone seriously hurt?” 

“What the hell is going on?” one man asked, sounding shaken but unharmed, and Cosima relaxed a little.

If people were complaining, they weren’t dead.

“Is anyone seriously injured?” 

“I don’t think so, there weren’t a lot of us--” The woman gathered up her daughter as she spoke, trying to soothe the wailing girl. “What’s happening?” 

“I don’t want it to be the aliens again,” the little girl bawled, clinging to her mother like she was never going to let go. “Please not the aliens ‘gain, Mama please--” 

“Hey,” Cosima whispered, crawling over to the pair. The little girl sniffed and looked up, and Cosima spread her hands in her best non-threatening manner, hoping her face hadn’t gotten too scratched up in the fight. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” 

The little girl blinked for a moment, and then her eyes widened. “You’re Captain ‘Merica.” 

“I sure am,” Cosima said, grinning as best she could. “And I’m here to promise you that everything’s gonna be just fine.” 

“You promise?” the girl asked, her voice small. Cosima looked up and saw the girl’s mother looking at her just as intensely, and all the other people on the bus watching and listening. “Really promise?” 

“Of course I do,” Cosima said, trying to meet the eyes of everyone in the bus as she said it. “It’s my job to keep you safe. And I’m definitely gonna do it. I really promise.” 

The rattle of gunfire outside made everyone, including Cosima, flinch and shrink down, and Cosima stepped back into her battlefield mode.

“Okay sweetheart, what’s your mom’s name?” 

“Jenny.” 

“Okay, your mom--Jenny,” she added, making eye contact with the girl’s mother. “Is gonna help you and all the other people on the bus hide really really well. Then, when the gunfire stops and you’re sure all the bad guys are gone, you’re gonna sneak out and run super-quick to the nearest building, okay? Everyone got it?” 

“But where are you going?” the little girl whimpered, her hand grabbing Cosima’s sleeve surprisingly tightly. “There’s bad guys out there.” 

“I know,” Cosima murmured, gently moving the girl’s hand. “But there’s some really good guys out there too. My friends. I have to go help them.”

“Will you come back?” 

Cosima exchanged a significant look with the little girl’s mother. “I’ll try my hardest, sweetheart.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima emerged to screaming and gunfire.

The Soldier stood on the overpass, a squad of identical black-suited men flanking her and raining down enough bullets that Cosima ducked back into the bus for shelter instinctively. 

_They know I’m here,_ she realized almost as she did so, _and they’ll take out this whole bus to get me._

_That’s not happening._

Her shield was a few feet away from the overturned bus, and after a half-second of thought Cosima ran for it, sliding across the asphalt like she was stealing a base and curling her entire body underneath the shield just as the gunfire began in earnest.

As she watched, the team rapelled down from the bridge in twos, the gunshots never lessening. Somehow they’d gotten their hands on machine guns, which the 21st century had decided to make deadlier than ever, and Cosima could do nothing but crouch behind her shield and try to wait it out.

Her arms took the brunt of the impact--even though the vibranium absorbed the shock, bullets still packed a _punch_ \--but just as she started to really feel like it was hopeless, a shout of pain was cut short and Cosima chanced a glance out from behind her shield.

One of the HYDRA agents was sprawled lifelessly on the ground, his gun abandoned. Another shot rang out, from the overpass she’d fallen from and a second agent stumbled aside.

Sam stood up, a rifle he must’ve stolen in his hands and another agent already in his sights.

_“Go!”_ he shouted, even as the remaining HYDRA operatives realized the threat and began aiming at him. _“I’ve got this!”_

Cosima gave him a nod of acknowledgement before running down the street in the other direction. She wasn’t going to waste the distraction he’d given her--and Natasha was missing.

An explosion rocked the ground a block away, and Cosima ran faster.

She was almost too late--saw Natasha’s body jerk in the all too familiar way bodies did when a bullet hit them, saw Natasha go down and didn’t see her get back up--and then it was all instinct.

The Soldier was standing on a car, aiming a rifle like she was born to do it.

Cosima slammed her shield into the Soldier’s head.

Or at least she _tried,_ but the Soldier was ready, whipping around in the last second and suddenly Cosima was on the defensive again, her shield ringing as the Soldier’s metal fist connected with it. The force was enough to slide Cosima back a few inches, and she had a moment of clarity to think _shit._

In the next moment, the Soldier’s foot lashed out and knocked Cosima’s legs out from underneath her, and it was all Cosima could do to keep a hold on her shield and keep her head covered as she rolled off the car, bullets pinging off her shield as she went.

The bullets were precise, irregular enough to keep Cosima on her toes and always dangerously, dangerously close to her head. 

She was in _trouble._

The gunfire stopped for a moment, and Cosima stood to run for cover--she needed to regroup, she needed a second to _breathe,_ she needed to know if Natasha was alive--

The Soldier came out of nowhere, her thighs clamping around Cosima’s neck-- _Natasha pulled this move in sparring, I need to_ \--and Cosima barely got her arm up in time, the Soldier’s garrotte cutting into her forearm instead of through her neck.

But she couldn’t _breathe._

Cosima stumbled backward, slamming her upper body, and by extension the Soldier, into one of the nearby parked cars, the car’s window breaking before the Soldier finally rolled off and Cosima could take a full breath again.

Pulling a gun out of nowhere, the Soldier started firing again, and Cosima rolled underneath a nearby car, the reprieve barely lasting a moment as the Soldier came around the car’s other side, still firing.

Blood dripped from Cosima’s arm as she tried to block the bullets, her jaw so tensed it ached despite the adrenaline. There wasn’t much more she could take of this.

The Soldier stepped closer and Cosima lashed out, sweeping one of the Soldier’s legs out from underneath her and, once she was off-balance, slammed her knee into the Soldier’s chest.

The Soldier stumbled and Cosima brought her elbow up into the Soldier’s face with as much force as she could muster. The goggles had disappeared at some point while she was in the bus, but the Soldier’s face mask was still there, and the hard plastic bit into her elbow.

The Soldier’s head only jerked back for an instant, and then her arm was coming at Cosima’s head, a knife clutched in the metal fist, and Cosima jerked up both arms to stop it.

The arm was _so_ strong, Cosima’s arms already trembling as she tried to hold the knife as far away from her as she could. She deliberately stumbled back a step, bending her knees, and the Soldier overbalanced, the knife digging through the side of the van Cosima was now backed up against. Cosima tried to move to the side and the knife screeched through the metal as the Soldier followed her, until they made it to the end of the van and Cosima could duck away, twisting so she was behind the Soldier. The momentary advantage didn’t last long, the Soldier pirouetting on one foot while bringing up her knee to land a blow, Cosima barely getting the shield up in time.

_I have to end this,_ Cosima thought to herself as the Soldier kicked again, impossibly flexible and even more impossibly strong, and she barely managed to bring her shield around again, the edge of it cracking into the Soldier’s face.

The Soldier stumbled back a few steps, brown hair falling over her face, and Cosima grabbed the advantage without even looking around. It wasn’t until she was on top of a car, shield already in a defensive position, that she turned back.

The Soldier’s black mask lay cracked on the ground.

Slowly, she raised her head.

And the world stopped.

_“Delphine,”_ and the gasp was like a revelation, like absolution, _“Delphine.”_

Delphine turned, looked.

It was _wrong._

The world went silent, narrowed to Delphine, standing there, Delphine, hair straighter and brown and blowing around her face, Delphine, her beautiful hazel eyes looking into Cosima’s.

Cosima, seeing nothing in those eyes.

_“Delphine--”_ and an explosion tore through the air, ripping apart the air, the fragile moment, and black smoke swallowed the end of the street.

_“DELPHINE!”_ and Cosima started to run, half-falling down the car, her mind screaming--nothing about this is right, nothing about this is okay in the least but _Delphine is here_ somehow _Delphine is here_ and if she can get to Delphine, if she can bring her back, maybe it can be okay--and suddenly Sam is there, holding her back, and she’s half-ready to attack him herself when she realizes there are an awful lot of men with guns.

Men pointing guns at her.

“She is not resisting, we are _not resisting--”_

“On your knees!” One of the soldiers grabbed Sam suddenly, pulling him away while another forced Cosima to her knees. She hardly felt her knees hit the ground, or the metal of the gun pressed to the back of her head.

She hardly felt anything at all.

“Not here,” one of the soldiers whispered, grabbing the arm of the man holding the gun. “Miller, there’s news helicopters. _Not here.”_

After a moment, Miller flicked the safety back on, roughly pulling Cosima up by the shoulder instead. “Get them in the trucks.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“She didn’t see me.” They were the first words Cosima had said since the fighting, and she was dully surprised by the ache in her throat. “She looked at me--she looked me in the eye--and she didn’t see me.”

“How was she there?” Sam, to his credit, didn’t try to tell Cosima she’d been seeing things, or even choose to focus on the fact that he, Cosima, and Natasha were all crammed in the back of an unmarked black van, two black-helmeted HYDRA agents staring them down. “I thought she died seventy years ago.”

“She didn’t,” Cosima whispered, shaking her heads. “They never found her body, she just went missing. I abandoned her,” she realized suddenly, shaking her head. “I never even questioned--I didn’t even _look,_ I just accepted it and they found her instead, and--”

“It’s not your fault, Cosima,” Natasha said, slurred and sluggish, and both Cosima and Sam tensed. She was still bleeding from the bullet she’d taken to the shoulder, gradually slumping more and more to the side, and that was all kinds of not good. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“Hey--hey, we need a medic back here!” Sam shouted, looking like he was ready to snap the restraints himself. “If we don’t put pressure on that wound, she’s gonna bleed out in the back of this truck!”

The HYDRA operatives didn’t move, and Cosima jerked against the restraints herself, hollowness turning to rage as Natasha’s head rolled a little more. She was not gonna lose another friend, not right next to her, not when she was _saveable--_

One of the operatives jerked out a long stick of a taser, already crackling with white electricity, and Cosima flinched despite herself. It was the second HYDRA agent who flinched next, though, as the first drove the taser into his side.

He crumpled to the floor and Cosima stared.

The first operative pulled off her helmet, and Cosima’s stare widened into a grin.

“Agent Hill!” 

“Ah, that thing was squeezing my _brain.”_ Agent Maria Hill shook out her hair, ignoring the looks of shock she was getting from all the conscious passengers in the van. Instead, she glanced impassively around the van, stopping when she got to Sam. “Who’s this?”

“Sam. Sam Wilson. I’m assuming you’re one of the good guys?”

“Depends. Are you?”

“I’m trying to be.” 

Agent Hill gave him a long, assessing look before nodding once, curtly. “Good enough. You a soldier?”

“Pararescue, two tours.” 

“I’m unlocking you first,” she said, already moving to do so as she spoke. “You get out of these cuffs, you give Agent Romanoff treatment, and I’ll get the rest of you out.” 

“Hill’s one of the good SHIELD agents, I worked with her during the Battle of Manhattan, she’s fine,” Cosima said in a rush to Sam before turning to Hill fully. “What’s our escape plan?” she asked, shifting anxiously in her cuffs while Sam pulled a thick square of gauze out of one of his cargo pockets and pressed it to Natasha’s shoulder.

“There’s an open manhole in three blocks.”

“That’s not really an answer.” 

Hill looked up from where she was undoing Cosima’s cuffs with a sharp glare, and Cosima fell silent.

“Everyone quiet,” Hill ordered, moving silently across the van floor and beginning to fiddle with the back doors.

“I’m starting to get an idea of what the open-manhole comment means,” Cosima muttered, helping Sam press the padding harder into Natasha’s shoulder. 

“Same,” Sam said, a look of trepidation growing on his face.

“Shut up,” Hill snapped, and they did.

The doors popped open, some patch of unrecognizable forest passing outside, and the van began to slow as it approached a corner.

“Drop and roll. You know the drill.”

“Natasha first. You’re hurt and we don’t have time,” Cosima snapped when Natasha looked up. “You first.” 

Without another word, Natasha heaved herself over to the door and disappeared.

“Sam, Hill,” Cosima snapped, and they both jumped out. The van started to speed up, the HYDRA driver making a muffled comment from the driver’s seat, and Cosima jumped.

She hit the ground hard, the road biting into her bare cheek as she tried to slow her roll without getting herself hurt, a small part of her remembering to hope she wasn’t about to end up right underneath another car.

She didn’t, and was able to spring to her feet with only a dull ache in her shoulders. The open manhole was only a few feet away, and not knowing how long the road was going to stay empty--or when HYDRA was going to realize the van was empty--she sprinted and jumped in.

Sam caught her around the waist and lowered her down. Hill stood a few feet away, Natasha’s arm slung over her shoulder. Natasha looked as focused as ever, but it was Hill keeping her upright and holding the gauze in place, and Natasha’s face had gone pale beneath the grime.

There was no humor in anyone’s face.

“We can’t stay here, she’ll go septic--” 

“There’s a plan, Captain, don’t worry.” Hill turned, moving with military precision and not waiting to see if they were following. “This way.” 

The sewers were twisting, almost too dark for even Cosima to see her way, but HIll knew where she was going, stopping in front of what looked like just another unremarkable stretch of sewer wall and placing her eye in front of a nasty-looking stain.

A matrix of light appeared, flashed over her retina, and disappeared again. The wall rumbled, shifted, and opened onto a wider and cleaner hallway.

They didn’t have time to be astonished. Hill pulled Natasha through the opening, and the rest of them fell in before it closed.

“GSW,” Hill called as soon as the door was shut. An unknown man appeared and hurried toward them. It was only Hill’s continued calm that kept Cosima from springing at him. “She’s lost at least a pint.” 

“Let me take her--”

“She’ll want to see him first,” Hill replied, in a voice that brooked no argument. Still, the doctor fidgeted a little before nodding and ushering them into a small room.

Nick Fury raised a hand in greeting.

Cosima almost ran into Natasha’s back. Natasha’s mouth moved soundlessly for a moment, while Cosima just stared.

“It’s about damn time.” 

“You're dead,” Cosima whispered, though a part of her surprise was already ebbing into resignation. There was only so much a person could feel in a day. “Does nobody stay dead?” 

“He came damn close,” Hill interrupted from where she was standing behind the doctor, occasionally handing him things as he stitched up Natasha’s bullet wound.

“Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache,” Fury said with a shrug.

“Don’t forget your collapsed lung.” 

“Let’s not forget that,” he added, with a nod at Hill. “Otherwise, I’m good.” 

“Good isn’t the word I’d use here--Nick, your _heart stopped,”_ Cosima said, rubbing at a building headache. 

“That was more of a party trick than anything. Tetrodotoxin B,” he explained. “Slows the pulse to one beat per minute. Banner was trying to use it for stress--it didn’t work great for him, but we found uses for it elsewhere.” 

“And you couldn’t call because…? Nick, you were bleeding out on my floor. I thought it was my fault--”

“Any attempt on the Director’s life had to look successful,” Hill cut in, and Fury inclined his head toward her and nodded.

“Can’t kill you if you’re already dead. Besides,” he added, his single eye landing on Cosima with an intensity that had Cosima straightening into military posture on instinct. “I needed to know who I could trust.”

“So,” he finished, looking at all the faces staring back at him. “What the hell is happening out there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update! You get this chapter a day early because I'll be travelling tomorrow to visit family. I considered just delaying for a week, but...I couldn't be that mean to y'all :)
> 
> As always, massive, MASSIVE thanks to Noelle and Chaya (therenegadegabbai on tumblr). I've said it a hundred times, but this really would not exist without them and their patience and encouragement. Comments are always, always welcome, and criticism encouraged! I'm on tumblr at elizaskylers, come cry about Delphine Cormier with me.
> 
> Have wonderful weeks and I'll see you soon! <3


	12. Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Non-consensual procedures and an explicit torture scene. Also discussions of loss, grief, and mourning.

“...And because it was a domestic missile strike, launched by SHIELD in such a short amount of time, the person heading it has to be--”

“I know how the SHIELD hierarchy works, Captain.” Fury sighed, looking old and tired. “Rachel Duncan.”

“That...seems most likely.” They had gone from standing around Fury’s hospital bed to sitting in scattered positions around the small room. Sam had been introduced, the doctor had been sent away, and after what felt like an incredibly long time, the events of the last day and a half were spelled out.

Cosima really, really wanted a joint.

“Rachel Duncan,” Fury repeated, slowly shaking his head. “I met that girl when she was twelve. I pulled her out of the ashes and ruins of the fire that killed her parents, and she clung to me all smoke-stained and shaking until I handed her to my only friend, Alexander Pierce. And when he died suspiciously, she said she had nothing to do with it and I believed her.” He cast a long, scathing look at the ceiling. “See, this is the kind of thing that gives me trust issues.”

“We have to stop the launch--”

“We have to take a breath.” It was Sam who interrupted, folding his arms over his chest when everyone else turned to stare at him. “Look, Natasha’s been shot, you’ve been shot sir--a lot--and Cosima and I had our butts handed to us. You guys at least were a vague and menacing government agency, I’m gonna guess you already have some sort of plan?”

“Well, it’s not as if the Council is accepting my calls--”

“We do,” Hill interrupted, ignoring the look she got from Fury. “But the launch is in 15 hours--” 

“Two hours,” Sam said, holding out his hands placatingly. “Sleep for the non-superpowered, blood transfusion for the ones with bullet holes, and then we might actually stand a chance.”

Cosima already had an objection on her lips, but it was Hill who answered. “You have a point, Wilson. Everyone, cots are through there-- _everyone,”_ she repeated, a sharp look directed toward Natasha. “We debrief in 90 minutes.”

With varying degrees of enthusiasm, they filed out toward the beds, Natasha dragging an IV pole along with her. Cosima lingered behind, and Sam noticed, doubling back with a raised eyebrow.

“Studies have shown that the ideal naptime is fifteen minutes, so--”

“For cramming for exams,” Sam said, “Not exactly saving the world. And we’ve all had a rough day. Go sleep,” he said, and Cosima sighed before following him out of the room.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Undersecretary Rachel Duncan announced herself with the echoing of heels against marble.

The vault was underground and looming, but she moved through it as if she was in a castle ballroom, not sparing a glance to either side--or the nervous scientist hurrying to keep at her side.

“Madam--Ma’am, she’s unstable, erratic--it’s unsafe--”

They stepped through the doors to what long ago had been the most secure section of a bank, and came face to face with the Winter Soldier.

Stripped to a grey sports bra and practical pants, she sat on a large chair designed for restraint rather than comfort. Her metal arm was laid out on a single armrest, electricity crackling and popping as another man worked on the circuits, while her bare flesh arm curled limply over her stomach, like a child halfway waiting for a blow. The Soldier’s head sagged forward, her chin-length brown hair hanging limp around her face.

Her eyes stuttered and darted around the floor, jerkily moving and focused on nothing.

Duncan stopped a few steps away from the Soldier, drawing herself up and looking down as if at an interesting spider.

“Mission report.” 

The Soldier shuddered, her lips twitching soundlessly before falling still.

With a crack that reverberated around the stone walls, the back of Duncan’s hand connected with the Soldier’s face. Her head snapped to the side, expression still slack, but she blinked, eyes slowly stilling.

“Mission. Report.”

The Soldier straightened up like a sleepwalker, not quite meeting the eyes of anyone in the room. 

“There was a woman,” she murmured sluggishly, her forehead narrowing a fraction. “The woman on the bridge. Who was she?” 

Duncan inhaled through her nose, silver-manicured nails twitching a fraction. “An assignment. You came into contact to her on an earlier mission.”

“She knew me,” the Soldier breathed. “She called me--”

“Our work,” Duncan said, effectively silencing all other sounds in the room, “Is essential for moving humanity toward the future that it deserves. The century has been shaped to our needs. Society is on the edge of order and chaos, and in the morning, we are going to bring it down. You have been an essential tool for getting us to this point, and we are going to use you one more time. Failure is not an option.”

The Soldier’s eyes slid around the room, her flesh fingertips brushing against each other. “She knew me.”

With the smallest huff, like a disappointed teacher, Duncan turned primly to one of the other scientists in the room. “Prep her.” 

“She…” The scientist fidgeted, glancing anxiously at his toes. “She’s too unstable--been out of cryo-freeze too long--”

“Then wipe her,” Duncan hissed, “And start over.” 

The scientist nodded, and two pairs of heavy hands landed on the Soldier’s shoulders, forcing her back against the seat. Another calloused hand grabbed her chin, squeezing her jaw until it opened and pushing a thick rubber mouth guard inside.

It wasn’t until the automatic restraints kicked in, loops of metal that clamped around her arms, her stomach, her legs, that the Soldier’s expression changed, going from slack to something that was almost panic. Muffled frightened breaths filled the air.

Duncan’s expression didn’t change.

A circular frame made of dark metal swung into position above the Soldier’s head, two plates already crackling with electricity as they lowered into place. Like she couldn’t help herself, the Soldier’s eyes darted from side-to-side, watching the plates move closer.

They fit snugly over the Soldier’s head, leaving only a sliver of skin and a single eye visible to those watching. For a moment, all the Soldier did was stiffen, hands curling into claws and single eye blowing wide.

Then the screaming began. 

Distorted around the mouth guard, the noise was bone-deep and barely human, a kind of keening coming from something primal, from someone desperate. Her legs tried to kick against the restraints; her hands scrabbled uselessly at the chair. 

Duncan stepped closer, her expression still icy, but a flare of _something_ in her eyes.

“Again.” 

A scientist flicked a switch, and the screaming increased in pitch, the restraints clattering as the Soldier’s body tried to convulse. The Soldier’s eye still hadn’t closed, darting around the room like it was seeking salvation. Like a child with a pretty toy, Duncan leaned forward, her eyes sweeping unblinkingly over the Soldier. 

“Again.” 

The chair shook as the Soldier’s back arced up and slammed back down. A nearby machine began flashing warning lights, its alarm drowned out by the noises coming from the chair--screams had devolved into strangled moans and mangled cries, a fine trembling starting up in the Soldier’s limbs. 

Duncan breathed out, low and slow, and the air caressed what little of the Soldier’s face was free of the metal. Carefully keeping herself clear of the chair and its prisoner, Duncan leaned in, closer and closer.

The Soldier’s eye, still wide, still seeking, landed on Rachel Duncan’s own glass-smooth, calm ones, and stilled. Duncan didn’t blink, didn’t look away.

“Again.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_“Cosima,” a soft voice murmured, a hand ghosting up and down her bare arm. “Cosima.”_

_Cosima moaned dramatically, throwing an arm over her eyes and rolling so her back was to the speaker. “No talking. I’m sleeping.”_

_“Cosima,” the voice repeated, amused and scolding at the same time. “I do not believe sleeping people can explain that they are sleeping.”_

_“They can if they’re super-soldiers.”_

_“I didn’t realize that was a benefit we’d worked into the serum.”_

_“Mm. It was one of the first things. Lots of battlefield applications.”_

_“I see. Such as?”_

_“Oh, too many to explain while asleep. I’ll tell you when I wake up.”_

_“Cheeky.” The brief silence stretched out into several moments, and Cosima took that as a sign that she’d won, snuggling back into the pillows with a sigh._

_Two fingers prodded her right in the sensitive spot on her ribs, and Cosima yelped, nearly falling off the bed. “Delphine!”_

_Delphine giggled, childlike and unrepentant. Cosima flipped over with a huff, fixing Delphine with a glare that would’ve been more intimidating if she hadn’t been biting back a smile. Delphine didn’t even try to pretend she was frightened, a few giggles still slipping past her grin._

_“You,” Cosima said, trying to infuse her voice with all the drill sergeant she could, “Just tickled Captain America.”_

_“Oui,” Delphine nodded, eyes shining with laughter even as she tried to smother her smile. “I admit it.”_

_“I think Captain America has no choice but to take revenge.”_

_“Wait--Cosima--” Delphine’s protest dissolved into a shriek of laughter as Cosima’s hands darted out to brush over the sensitive skin on her neck._

_Delphine had confessed to being ticklish a few weeks ago. That would be her downfall._

_“Cosima!” she shrieked again, laughter bubbling out of both of them as Delphine tried to escape under the blankets and Cosima followed her, a few of the pillows falling off the bed in the fray._

_At some point, Cosima had ended up straddling Delphine’s hips, both of them still shaking with laughter, even as the mood became more charged._

_“What are you going to do now?” Delphine asked, a little breathless, her eyes flicking to Cosima’s lips. A slow, lazy grin grew on Cosima’s face._

_“I was thinking of enjoying the view,” she teased, but was already moving, unable to resist smiling even as she kissed Delphine long and slow before burying her face in the space between Delphine’s neck and shoulder._

_“Cosima?”_

_“Mmhm?”_

_“I’m falling.”_

_And just like that, the memory crumbled._

_“Delphine?”_

_Cosima spun in a tight circle, reaching out and touching nothing. She could see herself, and nothing else, the air stale like she was underground, the smallest circle of light surrounding her and nothing else._

_“Delphine?”_

_“I’m falling.”_

_There she was--Delphine, hair brown and limp, eyes skimming over Cosima like she couldn’t quite see her, the darkness draped over her._

_She’d never looked so small._

_“Where are you?” Cosima asked even as she reached out, trying to wrap her arms around Delphine, to pull her into the light, but she could never quite reach her, her fingers always brushing and never really touching._

_“I..I’m falling, I...they’re making me fall.”_

_“Who?” Delphine was standing still, but Cosima couldn’t get closer to her, even as she kept walking forward, kept reaching. “Where are they? Delphine, let me save you--”_

_“Save me,” Delphine echoed, a smile that was anything but happy pulling on the corner of her mouth. “Save me.”_

_“I will, Delphine, I will--”_

_Delphine raised her hand, maybe about to reach out, maybe about to push away, but she stopped, looking at her hand not in fascination, but in a sort of resigned sadness._

_It was fading away._

_“No--Delphine, NO!” Cosima was running now, reaching out, screaming again. Delphine didn’t move, didn’t get any closer, didn’t quite look at Cosima, didn’t stop flickering out. “DELPHINE!”_

_Cosima tripped, fell to her knees, Delphine inches away but unreachable._

_“You said you’d never leave me.” Cosima reached out again, grasping nothing. “Please don’t leave me.”_

_The words fell off her tongue, so soft, so broken, and Delphine looked._

_Delphine looked her in the eye._

_“Co--”_

_In the space between one heartbeat and the next, Delphine was gone._

Choking on a sob, Cosima woke.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Is it finished?”

“Yes, Ma’am, she’s been wiped. Completely.”

“Good. Prep her. Failure is not an option.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

After two hours and in varying states of rested, Cosima, Natasha, and Sam sat across from hill and Fury, listening to her explain their rough plan for taking down HYDRA. Hill gestured to a small computer on the table between them, a diagram of the helicarriers onscreen.

“Once the helicarriers reach 3,000 feet, they’ll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized. We need to breach the carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own.” At that, she pulled out a small, secure briefcase, revealing three large computer chips inside. “Once these are in place, the ships will be rendered inoperational. But one or two won’t cut it, all three carriers need to be linked for this to work--if even one is still operational, a lot of people are going to die.”

“We have to assume everyone on these ships in HYDRA,” Fury added, leaning forward on the table and lacing his fingers together. “We get past them, insert the server blades, and then maybe, just maybe we can salvage what’s left--”

“Excuse me?” It was Cosima’s turn to lean forward, spreading her hands out on the table. “Are you listening to yourself, Nick? There’s nothing left to salvage. HYDRA is coming down, SHIELD and all.”

“SHIELD didn’t do this--”

“Nick, SHIELD is compromised beyond repair. You said it--HYDRA got this far without anyone noticing.”

“Do you not notice the cave we’re in? I noticed.”

“And after how long? After how many people died?”

“Look,” Nick sighed, his hands going from folded to placating. “I’m sorry about Doctor Cormier, but I didn’t know--”

“Whether you knew or not is not the point,” Cosima snapped. “It happened. And we’re all complicit in it. All of us--and all of SHIELD. So it all goes. We burn it all to the ground.”

Silence descended on the room after her announcement, the stare between Fury and Cosima not breaking for a long moment. Finally, Fury leaned back, glancing at the faces of the others at the table.

“She’s right,” Natasha said at last, leaning back from the table--and by extension, closer to Cosima. HIll sighed, glancing down before looking up, nodding toward Cosima instead of Fury. Fury turned to the last man in the room, raising an expectant eyebrow.

“Sorry,” Sam said, not really sounding all that repentant. “But I do what she does, just slower.” 

Fury sighed, leaning back from the table and raising his hands with a shrug. “Well, Captain, it looks like you’re giving the orders now.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam found Cosima standing just outside the bunker, crouched on the banks of a small river.

“Hey,” she said, standing and grinning. “How are you doing?”

“I feel like I should be asking you that question,” he said, glancing around the forest they were standing in. “They really take the whole isolated-hideout thing seriously, huh? Not only underground, but in a patch of forest I’m pretty sure isn’t on any maps.”

“Yeah, Fury always was kind of paranoid. A little too late, but...” Cosima shrugged, hiding her hands in the oversized sweatshirt of Sam’s that she was still wearing. “We’re here now.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask you about. Technically, the rest of us are in there, going over last minute preparations. So what are you doing out here?” Cosima fidgeted, and Sam raised an eyebrow. “Or do you want me to guess? Because I’m going to guess that it has a lot to do with Cormier?”

Cosima blew out a long breath, looking at the flowing water instead of Sam. “She’s gonna be there.” 

“Yeah.” Sam shifted, his gaze almost as sharp as Fury’s when he looked at her again. “You gonna be okay with that?”

“No,” she admitted, a laugh jumping out of her at the very idea of any of this situation being _okay._ “But I’m gonna do what we have to do.”

“Look,” Sam said, stepping forward so he and Cosima were standing shoulder to shoulder, even if neither of them was looking directly at the other. A breeze swept through the tall trees, and it was almost peaceful, like it was a bonding moment. 

Like the world wasn’t teetering on a knife’s edge, and like Cosima’s hadn’t already fallen to pieces anyway.

“I lost Riley,” Sam continued, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “A while ago, now, but it messed me up, really bad, for a really long time. And just today, flying again, fighting again--a lot of that shit’s come back up to the surface. It’s not fun.” 

“Sam, I’m sorry--”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” he said, cutting her off sharply. “There is nothing I regret about getting back in. That’s not the point of my speech. What I’m saying is, if hints of the past are enough to screw with me, I can’t imagine what being brought face to face with it is like.”

“It’s…” Cosima settled for Sam’s words instead of her own. “Not fun.”

A bird appeared on the river’s edge, drinking the fast-flowing water. It fixed Sam and Cosima with one beady eye, then the other, then disappeared in a flutter of feathers.

“Cormier was a good woman,” Sam said at last. “I’ll bet especially to you. But you can’t confuse the person she was with the person she is now. And now, I don’t think she’s the kind of person you save. I think she’s the kind of person you stop.”

“I know.” The admission felt like a betrayal, but the wind snatched it away and she couldn’t take it back. “From the minute I saw her on that bridge, I knew. But I have to save her anyway.”

“Cosima--”

“I’ll do what I have to do, I’ll put the world first, and then--and then, I’ll save her. I have to,” she continued, steamrolling anything Sam might’ve tried to say in response. “I know the facts, okay? I know it looks bad, but I have to try. She’d do it for me, Sam,” Cosima said, half-explaining and half-confessing. “She did it for me.” 

A long, charged silence fell over them both after that, broken by the sound of measured, precise footsteps approaching them.

“We’re almost ready,” Hill said, sounding almost apologetic. “You two should gear up.” 

Sam looked back over at Cosima, and couldn’t totally hide his snigger.

“What?” 

“You’re swimming in my clothes, dude,” he said, gesturing to all 5 foot 3 of Cosima in Sam’s faded hoodie. “Can’t wait to see you taking down HYDRA in that.” 

“This?” Cosima gestured, snorting a little as she looked at herself. “No, I’m not taking HYDRA on in this. This is a war, dude,” she explained. “I’m gonna get my uniform.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima had a newfound and sudden respect for museum workers.

Not their security--it had been almost depressingly easy to break in, regardless of the fact that it was still the predawn hours and she was now in one of the most-visited exhibits of all time--but the people who set up their displays.

There was no logical reason for Captain America to have trouble removing a simple costume from an ordinary mannequin. And yet.

_“Shit,”_ she hissed for the third time in as many minutes, overbalancing and nearly taking the entire display of the war uniforms of the Howling Commandos with her. The now half-dressed Captain America mannequin wobbled dangerously, and her shield clanged loudly to the floor. 

“Hello?” 

_“Shiit,”_ Cosima whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. The voice was soft, female, definitely on the elderly side--and approaching. _I don’t want to beat up an old woman._

_I’m going to have to beat up an old woman._

There was a long, slow scrape of metal against the floor as the little old woman--a security guard, judging by her uniform--lifted the shield, running wrinkled fingers over its surface. Cosima bit her lip.

“I promise I’m not gonna hurt you, and I really really promise that there’s a great explanation for this that I’d love to explain, but for now I just really need this uniform--”

“You don’t need to ask permission,” the woman replied. “It’s yours, isn’t it?” Cosima stared, and the woman stepped out of the shadows, a smile in her voice even if there wasn’t quite one on her face. “Your glasses gave you away.”

Cosima self-consciously touched the black cateyes, readjusting the frames on her nose. “Still, for politeness’s sake. Can I…”

“Go right ahead.” The woman gestured to the costume, and Cosima smiled a little before returning to her attempts to yank the shirt part of the costume over the mannequin’s head. The woman seemed content to just watch Cosima’s antics, her voice taking on the nostalgic tone that all old women seemed to earn with age.

“I think you were the one cause of the cateye craze. They were on everyone when I was growing up--still are, to some extent. My mom _hated_ it.” 

“Well, I’m not too sorry. They’re a good look.”

“You’re not too upset about being remembered as a fashion icon? It made my mom _furious.”_ She chuckled a little, the old shield still resting easily in her hands. “She was always furious about something, especially when I was younger, but that--excuse an old woman for speaking frankly, but it really _pissed her off.”_

“She sounds like someone I used to know,” Cosima said, her polite smile taking on an almost bitter edge as she thought--not for the first time that day--about everything she’d lost, and somehow, still stood to lose.

About her family.

The woman chuckled a little, and Cosima laughed along, even though she had no idea what the joke was.

The costume finally came free from the dummy, the fabric familiar in Cosima’s hands even though it was so much older than Cosima was now. With an irreverence that would probably have given several history buffs heart attacks, she shoved the costume into a ratty backpack she’d found and slung it over her shoulder. The woman watched, still holding the shield. Cosima hopped down from the display and walked over, polite grin still on her face.

The woman had a very familiar nose that Cosima couldn’t quite place.

A very familiar smile.

“I’m sorry,” Cosima said, motioning toward the shield. “I need that.” 

“Of course.” The woman crossed the last few feet separating them, holding the shield out. Cosima took it with a grateful little smile, but the woman wasn’t quite done, one birdlike hand reaching out and resting on Cosima’s wrist.

“You’re just like she said you were,” she murmured, looking up into Cosima’s face. The fondness in her voice, the gentle touch--it all should’ve seemed maternal, grandmotherly even. 

Instead it felt eager, even childlike. A small smile, full of wonder, lit up the woman’s face.

“It’s so good to finally meet you, Auntie Cosima.” 

“Aunt--?” The woman was already leaving, like an actress leaving the stage, and Cosima was left standing there, wrist still warm from the touch, old shield clutched in her hands.

_That familiar face._

_Auntie Cosima._

“Wait-- _Kira--”_

Her niece was already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's gearing up for their final battle, and so am I! You may have noticed that this fic is no longer chapter x/? but has an actual chapter limit! That is because this fic has been finally completed in my drafts--though some final edits might still be made--and will be 19 chapters plus a 'post-credits' scene. And that means I am starting work on the third (and final!) work in the trilogy!
> 
> Like always (but especially at the moment while I'm emotional) I have to shower praises on the two brilliant people who made this all happen, Noelle and Chaya (therenengadegabbai on tumblr). They're far too wonderful and kind, and seriously, none of this would exist at all if it wasn't for them. 
> 
> Comments are always so very welcome, and criticism encouraged! I always wanna chat on tumblr, so please come over to elizaskylers and say hi. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading, and until next week! <3


	13. Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Canon-typical violence and fighting, explicit fighting and death.

“Your flights were pleasant, I trust?” 

Rachel Duncan gestured magnanimously as she spoke, inviting the other members of the World Security Council to follow her through the lower levels of SHIELD headquarters. They did so, the agents still buzzing around the halls parting for the distinctly non-agent councilmembers. Councilwoman Hawley, the British representative, gave Duncan a polite smile that should’ve made her look grandmotherly on her wizened face, but managed to carry a predatory gleam all the same. The other councilmen--Singh, from India and Yen from China most notably--did not try quite as hard to convey civility, Councilman Singh going as far to scoff under his breath.

“The flight was lovely,” Hawley said over him. “Though the ride from the airport was less so.”

“My apologies,” Duncan said, smiling thinly. “But unfortunately, traffic is beyond even our control.”

“Speaking of things beyond your control,” Councilman Singh interrupted, hurrying forward so he was walking level with Duncan. “Captain America appears to have become a vigilante under your watch. Would you care to explain that?”

“Captain Sadler is a relic of an age that is past. It is unfortunate that it had to happen like this, but the world needed to realize that eventually--as did she. Rest assured that she _will_ come to heel.”

“When? It has been days, and your people are no closer to bringing her in than you were when she first _jumped out of your headquarters.”_ Singh stopped walking, forcing Duncan to stop as well. She turned to face him, her expression one of nothing but polite detachment. “Are you ever going to share these plans that you have so much faith in?”

“Of course, Councilman,” she reassured him, her smile going past polite into something that almost looked like amusement. “As a show of good faith,” she continued, opening the briefcase at her side and revealing four badges, all silver and a few inches long. “These are passes for all of you. This facility is biometrically controlled and, of course, normally under very tight control. However, these will give you unrestricted access. Anything you wish to investigate after our meeting, you may.” The councilmembers took the badges, Singh sniffing a little in disapproval, and pinned them on.

“Shall we?” Duncan asked, gesturing, and the group disappeared into a secure elevator up to top floor.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three sharp knocks rang out against the door, making the workers in one of the Triskelion command rooms look at each other in confusion.

“Um--” One of the men continued what he’d been saying, after looking around at his coworkers and confirming _no, nobody’s missing, and certainly nobody would knock._ “Um, Triskelion command request we clear the area for the helicarrier launch, we can’t get out there to check the dish--”

“But all our communications are down,” another worker pointed out, tapping at his currently-useless earpiece. “We can’t get in contact with any of the other floors to coordinate--”

Another three knocks rapped against the door, and they all looked at each other again.

“Uh, should we…?”

The door was kicked in with a massive crash, sending several men skittering for cover. The few that hadn’t hid under the desk looked cautiously at the door.

Cosima stepped over the wood shards, smiling brightly. Sam and Agent Hill stood behind her, looking significantly stonier.

“Hey guys,” Cosima said. “Hands above your heads and get out.” The men stared, and Cosima pulled a gun. _“Now.”_

They got out. Quickly.

“Okay,” Cosima muttered to herself, settling it at one of the computers while Sam watched the door. “Let’s do this.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The World Security Council stood in scattered positions around Undersecretary Duncan’s vast office, all watching the Undersecretary. She stood in front of the large windows, glancing out of them with a smile playing at her lips.

“I want to thank you all,” she said at last, turning to face the councilmembers fully. “I understand how difficult it must’ve been all these years, and I know many of you would’ve preferred, at one point or another, for someone else to be in charge. And yet,” she continued before anyone in the room could respond. “We stand here now, today. And the world owes us its gratitude--”

And then Cosima’s face appeared on the massive screen behind them.

 _“Hi,”_ she said, waving a little. Duncan’s face went very stiff. _“I’m Cosima--well, you all know who I am. If I know how this organization works, a lot of you’ve been ordered to capture and kill me in SHIELD’s name. But that’s the problem--SHIELD is just a name. It’s HYDRA.”_ Cosima stopped to swallow and shake her head. _“It’s been taken over by HYDRA. The STRIKE teams, the Insight crew--they’re all HYDRA. Others too. Maybe even your friends.”_ Cosima looked stricken as she continued, evidence of how much she hated saying any of it written all over her face.

 _“I’m sorry I don’t know more. What I do know is that Rachel Duncan is the leader,”_ Cosima continued. As one, the members of the Council turned to face Duncan, who was no longer even pretending to smile.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_“And under her, HYDRA is ready to take control. Absolute control.”_

SHIELD’s main level was was filled from wall to wall with computers and agents, normally buzzing with chatter and movement.

Now it was still. Every agent was still, staring at the massive monitor at the front of the room.

On the monitor, Cosima continued.

 _“HYDRA shot Nick. HYDRA shot Nicholas Fury,”_ and a few gasps and murmurs broke out across the room. Some of them were staring at their neighbors, their friends, with unmasked suspicion. 

Some of them were reaching for their guns.

_“And he’s not going to be the only one. HYDRA isn’t going to be satisfied with taking us down, they’re going to kill every single person that they think might threaten them someday. Some of them are who you’d expect--politicians, people in power, people with influence. Some of them are the ordinary people you and I signed up to protect. Some of them are kids.”_

_“We’re the only thing that stands between them and death. I wish I could give you data, I want to show you proof--I always say show, not tell, and here I am doing nothing but telling. I’m asking you to have faith in me.”_

_“I know I’m asking too much. I know how high the cost of doing the right thing can be.”_ Cosima’s eyes slid shut, a flash of agony passing over her face, but when she looked up again her voice was steady. _“But despite it all, I believe in it. So please, have faith in me. Because I have so, so much faith in you.”_

The video winked out, and the room plunged into a silence taut as a fraying cable.

And then the STRIKE team burst in.

Rumlow strode across the room, the rest of the STRIKE operatives following a few paces behind and carrying very large guns. “Preempt the launch sequence,” he growled before he’d even reached the technician’s desk, with a glare that dared anyone to contradict him. The technician was trembling before Rumlow came within a few feet of him, and flinched when Rumlow’s hands slammed down on his desk. “Send the helicarriers up _now.”_

“I…” The technician, a glasses-wearing, slightly pudgy man who’d only wanted to help save the world, like the grandfather he'd been named after had during World War Two, when he saved Captain America’s life before she’d even been a soldier, swallowed. “I…”

“Is there a problem, Smith?” Rumlow leaned closer, voice nearly a snarl. _“Is there a problem?”_

“Sir,” Smith said, his voice steady even as his hands continued to shake. “I’m not going to launch those ships. Captain’s orders.”

Rumlow unholstered his gun, the safety clicking off right next to Smith’s ear. “Stand up.”

“Sir--”

“Scott Smith _stand up!”_

“You’re not touching him.” In one fluid movement, Shay Davydov rose to her feet and threw the safety off her own gun, pointing it directly at the back of Rumlow’s head. 

One of the STRIKE operatives jerked into action immediately, his own weapon going to point at Shay. _“Put the gun down--”_

“You should _really_ shut up.” Behind the trigger-happy operative, another SHIELD agent--this one Childs according to her name badge--stood, her gaze never clearer or steadier as she aimed at his head. “Like he said. Captain’s orders.”

“You’re idiots,” Rumlow snarled, his eyes darting from Shay to Childs. “You’re all _idiots.”_

Childs smirked. “You’re damn right.” 

And the room exploded into chaos.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“They’re initiating launch.” Hill’s voice crackled over the comms, and Cosima swore under her breath. They were supposed to have two hours before launch even began--now it seemed that they had a much shorter time frame. She and Sam had just reached the bottom floor of SHIELD headquarters, but as one they went from jogging to running, kicking down the main doors and charging out.

The helicarriers looked even more impressive from here. The engines roared, drowning out the sound of the massive doors underneath the river opening up to let the helicarriers through and the rush of displaced water. Each the size of what seemed like a small country from ground level, and carrying thousands of guns along with their own personal fleets of aircraft and, undoubtedly, hundreds of HYDRA soldiers.

For a moment, the carriers blotted out the sun.

Cosima and Sam ran faster.

“Hey, Cap,” Sam asked, his voice full of battlefield levity. “How do we tell the good guys from the bad guys?”

“Generally speaking, the guys pointing guns at you? Not good.”

The carriers were rising one at a time, a few moments and a few hundred feet separating each of them. Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie-the three horsemen of the apocalypse.

They made it to the edge of the bay doors and Sam’s wings snapped out, the black and grey metal catching the light for an instant before Sam jumped and was gone, headed for the highest carrier. 

Cosima jumped almost the moment Sam did, the second carrier looming massive beneath her and quickly rushing to meet her. She swung her shield around so that it hit the carrier’s surface instead of her head, somersaulting until her momentum was gone and she could jump to her feet again.

Just in time to see a group of agents running toward her.

They pulled their guns and she pulled her shield back up, darting behind a few storage containers and waiting. The gunfire slowed and she held her breath, listening to the shuffle of boots against asphalt as the team split up, a group going to each side of the containers waiting to flush her out.

It was a technique Cosima’d used with her Howling Commandos, and one she’d suggested to the shield training staff.

Out of the corner of her eye, Cosima saw one of the operatives start to aim their gun at her.

Cosima sprang up, vaulting over the other side of the crates and running for it. Bullets peppered either side of her but she could barely even hear the shots over the sound of anti-aircraft fire coming from the massive carrier above her.

That didn’t bode well for Sam.

She shoved that thought down and kept running.

The group behind her weren’t getting any closer, and their aim wasn’t improving, but they had to be calling for backup. The relative peace of ten men chasing her down and shooting wasn’t going to last very long.

 _“Cap?”_ Sam’s voice crackled through Cosima’s earpiece. The sound of anti-aircraft fire doubled, echoing in her ear from Sam’s line. _“I found those bad guys you mentioned.”_

Cosima skidded a little, straining to make sure she could hear Sam clearly. “Are you okay?”

_“Not dead yet.”_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fifty stories up, Duncan strolled calmly past the glass walls overlooking New York City. Her heels clicked steadily against the marble floors.

The councilmembers were still scattered around the room, all of them watching Duncan but barely moving, barely even breathing.

That was probably because of the guns trained on them by the STRIKE operatives in the room.

“When I was twelve years old,” Duncan said, her steps slowing before she turned to face the councilmembers. “There was an arson attack at my parents’ laboratory. On one of the few days that the nanny was busy, so my parents were forced to bring me along. A child, in a place she didn’t know, with the world burning around her and her mother’s screams echoing around the walls. Parents killed before their time, a child forced to hear herself being orphaned--can you imagine?” Duncan shook her head, slow, disapproving. “And it happens far too often. But we can stop it. A switch we can flip, simple as that. Wouldn’t you do it, if you could stop that from happening to you, to your spouses? To stop it from happening to your daughters? In fact, Councilman Singh,” she added, taking a few steps toward him. “How are your daughters?”

“You’re sick,” Singh sputtered, hands clenching into fists at his side. “You’re a sick, twisted _bitch.”_

Duncan smiled.

“And yet no one is holding a gun to my head.” Next to her, one of the STRIKE team repositioned his gun, aiming directly at Signh. “Councilman--”

Councilwoman Hawley’s foot lashed out, kicking Councilman Singh to the ground--and out of the gunman’s range. The operative switched his aim to her, but she was already moving toward him, her knee landing solidly in his gut before she flipped him, the man’s head hitting the ground with a crack. 

The other operatives in the room advanced immediately, guns unholstered, and Hawley let two small metal discs fall out of her sleeve, catching them and scattering across the room. Two of them hit two of the operatives and sent enough electricity through them that it arced white-hot off their bodies before they dropped to the floor.

The remaining operative charged from the other side of the room and Hawley abandoned her heels as she ran to meet him, launching herself at the last moment and clamping her thighs around his head. She twisted as they fell together to the ground and the man went limp with a nauseating crunch.

His gun clattered to the ground and Hawley snatched it up, rising smoothly to her feet with the gun trained on Duncan.

“I’m sorry,” she said, the deep wrinkles in Hawley’s face flickering as she spoke. She reached up, pulling at the side of her face, and a flesh-colored matrix came away with her hand. Natasha Romanoff’s face was left behind, a smirk with just a trace of smugness left behind. “Did I step on your moment?”

Duncan took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring. _“Nobody_ does this to me--”

“Oh, I think we’ve established that’s not true.”

Outside the windows, explosions and fires ripped through the sky, and Duncan stiffened even more.

“Now,” Natasha smiled. “Shall we begin?”

Duncan didn’t move, but her eyes followed Natasha unerringly. Natasha didn’t respond, approaching the councilmen instead and passing the gun onto Councilman Yen, who seemed just a bit too eager to take it and aim at the back of Duncan’s head. “You’re not going to kill me. You’d have done it already. You were _designed_ better than that.”

“So were you.” Natasha didn’t look at Duncan as she crossed to the computers, tapping a few buttons before settling in, her fingers flying across the keyboard. The other councilmembers glanced at each other, Yen’s hand shifting a little on the gun.

Duncan was staring daggers at Natasha, her chest close to heaving. Natasha only typed faster, her disregard for Duncan too total to be anything but deliberate.

“What are you doing?” Councilman Rockwell, the American representative, asked, his voice faltering a little in the tense atmosphere.

Duncan snorted, a small indelicate sound.

“She’s disabling the security protocols. Taking all of SHIELD’s information and dumping it on the internet for anyone to see.”

“Not to mention HYDRA’s,” Natasha replied, totally unruffled as she continued typing. 

“But you forget exactly what SHIELD’s secrets contain,” Duncan said, like she was speaking to an unreasonable child. “Your past, in all its entirety, out there for the world to see. You’re not ready for that.” 

Natasha glanced up from the screens, her green eyes unflinchingly meeting Duncan’s brown. “Are you?”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima crept down the thin walkway, feeling incredibly exposed as she glanced at the curved glass on every side of her.

Why the helicarrier engineers had decided to put all the targeting hardware in a massive fishbowl on the bottom of the carriers was a mystery to her, but at least she’d made it to one without getting shot.

Nearly grazed, yes. Caught in the blast of an explosion, yes. But she wasn’t bleeding yet, and in the haze of adrenaline and determination, that felt as good as not being injured at all, even if her probably-broken ribs chose to disagree.

She was grinning triumphantly as she got to the stacks of hardware, jerking one of the blades out and sliding her own in place. “And that is Alpha locked down,” she announced into the comms, giving herself a moment to bask in the feeling of accomplishment. “Falcon? What’s your status?”

A smattering of gunfire burst across the comms as Sam answered, a little breathless, _“One minute!”_

Cosima nodded to herself, biting her lip as she waited for Sam to check back in. It was strangely quiet for the moment, the helicarrier slicing through the air like it wasn’t carrying hundreds of HYDRA agents, like its mission wasn’t to murder thousands, like the world wasn’t heavy on her back as she waited for her friend to confirm he was still alive.

 _“Beta lock,”_ Sam’s voice crackled in her ear, and Cosima breathed again.

“One more to go,” Cosima announced, starting down the walkway again, checking her surroundings as she went. “Sam?”

 _“Here, Cap.”_

“Have…” Cosima swallowed, letting her commander’s mask slip for a moment in the lull in the action. “Have you seen her yet?”

_“Not yet.”_

“She’s here though,” Cosima said, not letting her feet stop carrying her forward, not letting her voice falter. “I know she’s here.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Soldier crouched behind a stack of shipping containers, watching pilots run _(out of formation, shouting, undisciplined, not HYDRA agents)_ toward the fighter jets _(attempting to attack helicarriers with small planes, blindly following Captain America. Irrational. Emotional)._

There were approximately 11 pilots headed for the planes. She looked up at the carriers. One had a large hole in the base, one now silent when gunshots had been coming from it before.

One, untouched.

Her eyes latched onto a scrap of red, white, and blue movement at the base of one of the helicarriers.

_Captain America._

She looked back toward the planes (transport) and stepped out from behind the crates.

A pilot looked back at her and shouted. She lifted the machine gun, fired, and he fell. She fired again and more of them fell.

Three made it to planes, the hydraulic doors closing slowly _(potential threats)._ The fist-sized bombs rolled easily from her pouch to her hand, and flew easily from her hand to the cockpits of two of the planes.

The heat of the blast arced up her back as she headed for the third plane _(threats eliminated),_ the doors shutting before she got there. The pilot grabbed at the controls, his fingers shaking _(emotion and weakness)_ and slowing him down. The machine gun was slowing her down; she discarded it.

She landed lightly on the windshield. The pilot looked up, eyes wide, and she unhooked a pistol from her waist.

The Soldier fired twice, and the pilot slumped _(transport acquired)._ She pulled the door open with one hand, swinging herself in and slamming it shut.

The pilot’s head lolled against her shoulder, blood oozing onto her as she grabbed the controls. 

_Mission: Kill Captain America._

The helicarriers loomed and the Soldier aimed upward, the small jet slicing through the air like a throwing knife, headed for the heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of action in this chapter, I hope you all enjoyed! I have to, yes again, thank my wonderful wonderful betas, Noelle and Chaya (therenegadegabbai on tumblr). Saying that they are the ones who made it all possible over and over again doesn't make it any less true, and they deserve recognition for the time they also put into this, and also for putting up with all the times I'd message them with some obscure fact-checking problem or random plot twist I wanted to know if I could add. They're fabulous people.
> 
> Like always, comments are very welcome and criticism encouraged! I'm on tumblr at elizaskylers and always thinking about either this fic or Delphine Cormier, come talk to me about either of those.
> 
> <3


	14. Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Canon-typical/explicit violence and fighting.

Rachel Duncan and Natasha Romanoff stood on opposite sides of the glass desk, the only movements in the room Natasha’s fingers on the keyboard. She made a last few decisive clicks before her hands stilled at last, subtly leaning back from the computer.

A small smirk grew on Duncan’s face.

“That’s as far as you go, Agent,” she said, Natasha glancing up to meet Duncan’s triumphant gaze. “An easy mistake to make, but disabling the encryption is an executive order. That means you need two Alpha-level members.”

“Don’t worry,” Natasha replied, her tone as light as Duncan’s. “Company’s coming.”

She glanced toward the window, Duncan following her gaze.

Just outside the windows, a black helicopter that was SHIELD-quality but definitely not one of SHIELD’s own landed almost delicately on the helicopter pad. With the blades still whirling and whipping his coat around him, Nicholas Fury stepped out.

Duncan’s face went wooden.

Natasha smirked.

_“How--”_

“Ask him yourself.” Natasha inclined her head toward the doors just as Fury stepped in, his face totally blank except for his single, blazing eye. Duncan inhaled deeply through her nose, drawing herself up as Fury approached.

“Nicholas. What a pleasant surprise.”

“Now, why don’t I believe that.” He stepped forward, throwing his own shoulders back, looking his best friend’s daughter in the eye. “Maybe it’s because you had me killed.”

“None of this is personal, Nicholas--”

“Yeah, it felt pretty personal when I was bleeding out on the ground.”

“I was playing the game,” Duncan replied, eyes hardening. “Something I learned from you.”

“Oh, don’t play that card with me.” Fury stepped forward, any trace of his injuries disappearing under the haze of anger. “Your father--”

“Would have done the exact same thing. We want the exact same things. Order. Control. And we can get it together--seven billion people, safe for the rest of their lives. Their children safe.”

“And how many people will die for your fantasy to happen?”

“It’s not fantasy, Nicholas,” Duncan hissed. “It is the logical next step. If you have the strength to take it with me--”

“No.” Fury stared at Duncan, his best friend’s child, the little girl he’d dragged from a building’s wreckage, and for just a moment, a deep, deep disappointment settled in his eye. “I have the strength not to.”

_“Retinal scanner active.”_ The cold computerized voice cut through the air as two scanners appeared on the large screen behind the computer. Natasha stepped back from the monitor, her gun smoothly dropping into her hand and aiming at Duncan’s head.

“Your plan hinges on this?” Duncan’s eyes darted around the room, even as her voice stayed steady. “Your clearance was wiped from the system days ago.”

“Oh, I know that,” Fury replied cooly, strolling forward. “You erased my password. Deleted my retinal scan. But there’s one thing you never learned, Rachel,” he said, reaching up and sliding his eyepatch off his face. 

Fury blinked slowly. His second eye was surrounded by red, puckered skin, a deep scar gouging from his eyebrow directly through the grey, clouded eye, but his gaze was unwavering.

“You never learned to keep both eyes open.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_“The Charlie carrier is 45 degrees off the port bow,”_ Hill went silent for a moment, then continued almost too calmly. _“Six minutes.”_

Cosima stood at the edge of the Bravo carrier, squinting through the wind at the final carrier. It was almost silent from here, like a shark through the water.

Behind her, a group of soldiers took aim.

“Sam?” she said into the comm, her ponytail whipping back and forth. “I’m about to do something very stupid.”

_“You mean again?”_

“Yup.” Cosima jumped up, tucking her knees in and feeling the heat of explosions and nearby gunfire on her back as she plummeted off the helicarrier’s edge, free-falling toward the ground. “Gimme a lift!”

The wind howled in her ears, drowning out everything but her heartbeat. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, letting the air snatch away her laughter and ignoring the ground below.

Sam grabbed her wrist, the sudden momentum stop nearly jerking her arm out of its socket. Cosima opened her eyes again, staring up at the blue sky and letting herself get lost in it, for just a moment.

Sam placed Cosima almost delicately on the deck of the last carrier, a gust of wind buffeting the back of her head as Sam slowed and landed himself.

“We have to do that again,” she laughed, pushing aside a few locks of hair that’d come loose.

“Yeah, maybe you could skip the part where you jumped off a freaking helicarrier--”

Something slammed into Cosima’s side with all the force of a train. She wheezed weakly with the little air left in her lungs, hands reaching out blindly as she felt herself sliding down the sleek side of the carrier.

Sam screamed her name.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_“Cosima!”_

The Captain disappeared over the carrier’s edge. The Falcon was still shouting, his wings (Stark designed, carbon-metal alloy, weak points at the hinges and the connection to the power source) spreading as he began to head after the Captain.

The Soldier went after the Falcon.

She went for the pack on her back, a rope of shining stronger-than-metal in her arm of shining stronger-than-metal, and lashed out, the weight on the rope’s end wrapping it tightly around the Falcon’s ankle.

Her arm jerked back, and he came crashing down.

The rope whipped him behind the Soldier, his figure disappearing in a crash of crates, and the Soldier _(primary objective: kill the Captain)_ leaped for the helicarrier’s edge.

A movement, and then the Soldier flattened out against the ground, a few inches beneath the bullet spray.

The Falcon stood among the debris, a gun in each hand and both pointing at her, and the Soldier flipped herself over. She darted for the nearest bit of cover i>(the Falcon is emotional. The Falcon is weak) and vaulted herself on top of the low wall she’d ducked beneath. The Falcon had already abandoned his mission to kill her, spreading his wings as he went after the Captain.

And the Soldier sprung.

She landed on his back, twisting with the momentum and slamming them together to the ground. The Falcon shouted, his wings working and buffeting her with wind. 

They started to lift off the ground and the Soldier half-stood, one boot slamming into the side of his head and grinding it into the asphalt.

Her metal hand closed around the wing and pulled.

_(Stark technology is not infallible. Everything has its weaknesses.)_

The Falcon made a choking sound, his feet scrabbling against the ground. The Soldier didn't hear him.

The connections holding the wing to the power source began to spark and snap.

The metal fingers tightened. 

The wing gave way, flung over the Soldier's shoulder like a piece of tissue paper. 

For a moment there was only breathing, the Soldier blotting out the sun.

And the Soldier kicked the Falcon off the carrier.

There was a distant scream, too feminine to be the Falcon’s, and the Soldier stepped to the edge of the carrier.

A blue-clad figure was clinging to the a small outcropping on the carrier's side, screaming into her earpiece as she hauled herself into a more secure position. 

The Soldier watched, then silently vanished. 

_(Primary objective: kill the Captain)_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_“SAM!”_ Cosima pressed her comm into her ear hard enough to hurt, like pressing it harder would make it more likely she’d hear something, like it would erase the image of him dropping through the sky like a stone. “Sam, _shit,_ say something, come in--”

 _“I'm okay.”_ His voice was crackling but clear, and Cosima sighed in relief. _“The emergency chute works. But the suit’s trashed. I'm grounded.”_

“That's okay,” Cosima breathed, carefully pulling herself into a hatch on the carrier's side. “This is the last one anyway. I’ve got it.”

_“Cosima,”_ Sam said, an undercurrent of concern making it through despite the crackling comm. _“She’s on that carrier, you know.”_

“I know.” Cosima stilled, swallowing hard against the emotion lodged in her throat. “I've got it.”

After the chaos of fighting, surrounded by gunfire and the roar of wind, everything felt too silent as she crept forward. 

Through a stroke of luck, she’d ended up just a few feet away from the carrier's glass fishbowl holding all of its targeting equipment, all the HYDRA agents probably off trying to figure out what had happened to the other two carriers. The door opened easily.

In front of her, at the end of a long narrow bridge, sat the innocuous matrix of computer chips. Her own replacement chip felt heavy in her pocket.

The air felt like it was holding it's breath.

Cosima stepped forward, waiting for an alarm, a gunshot, something, but there was only the sound of her boots against metal. The matrix of chips was thirty, twenty, ten feet away--

Cosima turned around.

_“Delphine.”_

Delphine stood there, silent and solid, and for a heartbeat, Cosima allowed herself the dangerous indulgence of drinking the image in.

What she saw very nearly shattered her. 

Delphine had lost the black mask, nothing covering her face face except for a few wisps of hair--and her hair was nothing like it once had been, limp dark waves replacing golden curls. It ended raggedy around her chin, like someone had run a knife through it.

Like it had gotten snagged in a knife when someone tried to slit her throat.

Her body was draped in black and weaponry, her left arm silver and shining, and for some reason the first question Cosima thought of was whether or not she’s eating enough, because Delphine looked like nothing but blades and bones.

She looked at Delphine’s eyes, and didn't see Delphine at all.

“Delphine,” she said again, searching for a flicker of _anything_ in the other woman's face. “Delphine, I know it's you. I know you're there.”

Delphine didn't move. She didn't react at all.

“I--” Cosima shook her head weakly, something inside her breaking as she stared at Delphine. The lives of so many people rested on her shoulders in that moment but she couldn't move, couldn't look away. “I need to save the world. You get that, I know you do, please--” She took a shuddering breath, her eyes burning. “I can't do this. Delphine, don't make me do this.”

Cosima took a half-step forward. 

Delphine leaped.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Done.” Natasha’s voice sliced easily through the tense air. Duncan’s office had been dead silent before she’d spoken, save for the click of Natasha’s fingers on the keyboard, but now the councilmen and agents alike focused on her as she casually pulled out her phone. “And it's trending.”

“It's over, Rachel.” Fury sounded almost regretful as he tilted his head, gesturing for her to move.

“It’s not over,” she replied, far too at ease. Councilman Singh opened his mouth to object at her tone--

And he and the rest of the councilmen fell down dead.

Both Natasha and Fury spun to face Rachel, guns already outstretched, only to be faced with the smallest of triumphant smirks underneath Rachel Duncan’s coldly glittering eyes.

“I wouldn't do that,” she smiled. “That pin on your chest, Agent Romanoff, was armed the moment you put it on. Put down your guns, or…” She glanced at the bodies around them. 

Fury lowered his gun. After a moment of reluctance, Natasha did the same. 

“Well done,” Rachel murmured with an icy smile. “We may be able to find you a place in the new world yet.” 

Rachel moved easily across the room, the small silver remote that would kill Natasha with a single button held proudly in one hand as she lifted her phone to her ear.

“Charlie carrier,” she said, a smirk pulling at one corner of her lips. “Status update, please.”

_“Sixty-five seconds to satellite link, ma’am. Target reengaged. Lowering weapons array now.”_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_“One minute.”_

Agent Hill’s voice was tinny through the comm, but loud enough to cut through the roar of blood in Cosima’s ears.

Beneath her, Delphine went limp.

“I'm sorry,” Cosima repeated, the words already almost meaningless from how many times she'd said them. She released the headlock that she’d had Delphine trapped in, sliding out from underneath the prone woman to grab the vital computer chip that’d fallen to the ground in the struggle. 

Blood dripped down Cosima arm as she stood, staggering slightly. The two of them had fallen from the bridge and it took her a second to reorient herself--seriously, who had designed these things--before dashing toward the nearest structure that she could climb to get back up to the matrix of targeting chips.

She thought about how few seconds were left until the HYDRA world order rose. 

She thought about the lives that depended on her. 

She thought about everything except the unconscious woman she’d left behind her.

_Compartmentalize. Keep it together. Fall apart when there's time to fall apart. Not now._

_Not now._

Her hands still shook as she raised the computer chip, waiting for the glass case to whirr open, so she could place this last chip.

So she could end this.

_“Thirty seconds Captain,”_ Hill said, her voice the closest to panicked that Cosima had ever heard it.

“Got it,” she replied, carefully narrowing her world to nothing beyond the chip, it's slot, and the mission. “Charlie--”

She never heard the gunshot.

She saw the blood though, blooming across her stomach like a flower. Choking a little, her breath suddenly stuttering as she pressed one hand to the hole in her gut, she raised her head.

There was Delphine, gun clenched in an outstretched silver hand, empty eyes unwavering as Cosima slumped to the ground.

_Twenty seconds._

Delphine’s boots echoed through the room, the sound of someone who could be silent walking loudly, the sound of confidence and efficiency. Of someone who knew that they were about to win.

Cosima swallowed against the pain and bile rising in her throat and forced herself to her knees.

_Fifteen seconds._

Her knees buckled as a sudden spasm tore through her and she choked, the chip miraculously remaining whole even as her other fist and her jaw clenched against the onslaught. Her stomach seemed to have realized all of a sudden that _hey, there's a massive hole in me,_ that her gut had been shredded, and that there was a bullet nestled somewhere in the tatters that once were abdominal muscles. 

She hunched over instinctively and her broken ribs screamed, and she tasted blood, and none of this was good.

She could still hear Delphine moving, waiting. Watching her bleed out.

_Ten seconds._

Cosima knew that if Delphine picked up on the fact that she still had the chip, she would shoot Cosima dead then and there. She isn't sure why Delphine hasn't done that already--a small part of her whispers that it's because Delphine knows, somewhere, who Cosima is, who she and Cosima were to each other, that Delphine is still in there somewhere--

_Seven seconds._

Delphine is still moving and the chip is still useless in Cosima’s hand. Cosima is still in agony, she still loves Delphine deeply enough that it aches so much worse than her wounds, and the world still rests on Cosima’s shoulders.

_Four seconds._

She allowed herself one deep breath through gritted teeth, then rolled herself onto her side. Delphine was silent--maybe still, maybe moving assassin-quiet, maybe a hundred feet away and maybe ten--but Cosima forced the thought away.

_Three._

She shoved her knees beneath herself, almost managing to convince herself that she wasn't feeling the pain that ripped through her.

_Two._

She dragged herself up on her elbows, raising the chip in a shaking hand.

_One._

The chip slid easily into the slot, like it had always belonged there.

“Charlie locked.”

_“Got it, Captain, now get out of there--”_

Cosima sagged back to the ground, barely hearing Hill’s voice coming through the comm.

_It's over._

“Fire now,” Cosima ordered. “There's no time. Fire now.”

There was a beat of silence. _“Cosima--”_

“Maria.” Cosima said. She knew there was no way off the carrier, and she was so tired. “It's okay. Fire now.”

She was so tired.

An explosion rocked some distant part of the ship, then another, closer, and then the world was crashing down around her. The impossibly loud sounds of steel girders bending and snapping, of materials that were meant to be shatterproof shattering, three leviathans tearing each other apart in the sky, all of it was so much and too much, and Cosima turned her head away.

She was ready to be done.

And then a strangled scream managed to cut through every single noise to claw at Cosima’s heart, and against everything she wanted, she turned to look.

A floor below her, a girder bigger around than Cosima’s body had fallen. 

On Delphine.

Delphine cried out again, making a movement that would've been a full-body jerk if it hadn't been for the beam nearly bisecting her body. Even from here, Cosima could see Delphine’s eyes casting desperately around the room, looking for something--anything--to help her.

Her eyes landed on Cosima.

Cosima dragged herself forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That happened.
> 
> All the thanks in the world, again, to two brilliant people, Noelle and Chaya (therenegadegabbai) who made this all happen. Comments are welcome, criticism encouraged, and I'm always crying about Soldier!Delphine (and canon Delphine too, let's be honest) on tumblr at elizaskylers.
> 
> See you next week <3


	15. Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Graphic fighting, violence, and injury. Brief mention of suicidal ideation.

“Still think the Captain doesn't stand a chance?” Natasha asked, voice dripping with dry sarcasm. Outside the window, three helicarriers blossomed into flames that blotted out the sky.

“I think that Captain Sadler is a child, throwing a tantrum and destroying billions of dollars worth of progress in the process.” Rachel gazed out the windows, nostrils flaking in the slightest display of disapproval. “A pity.”

Natasha flexed her shoulders and Rachel’s gaze snapped to Natasha with a scalpel’s precision.

“Not so fast.” Rachel raised the device in her hand almost casually, like she had all the time in the world.

The device that, with a single press, had already killed three people and was primed to kill Natasha as well.

“Come, _Romanova,”_ she murmured, a Russian accent purring around the name. Natasha stiffened the barest fraction. “The two of us have a plane to catch.”

Natasha sent Rachel a scathing look, even as she did what she was told, her heels clicking out a counterpoint to Rachel’s own against the tile.

“I pulled you out of a fire, Rachel,” Fury called, his eye never leaving her. “I would've taken a bullet for you ten times over.”

“You did, Nicholas,” Rachel replied smoothly. “And soon, again, you will.”

The subtle shift of Natasha’s arm was practically invisible, the glint of something silver falling into her hand even more so.

The white-hot crackle of electricity arching across her body as she activated one of her own electrical discs was impossible to miss.

Natasha crumpled to the ground like a broken doll. Rachel froze for half a heartbeat, long enough for Fury to snatch up a fallen gun and advance on his foster daughter, his hand not shaking a fraction. 

“It's over, Rachel,” he said, not firing but not lowering the gun either. “You're done.”

Rachel’s eyes darted around the room like a trapped animal's, her breath catching shallowly in her chest. _“No--”_

“Come on,” he said, a heavy note of regret creeping into his voice as he stared at the barely-panicking woman that was the closest thing to his daughter, who was now backing away from him. He reached out his spare hand, beckoning her forward. “It's time to go.”

“No,” she repeated, her back now pressed to the tall windows of the room. _“Nobody_ lays hands on me.”

The remote clattered loudly to the ground, a second device slipping from her pocket to her hand. Fury flicked the safety off his gun and stepped forward. 

The window dropped away, and Rachel dropped with it.

Fury hesitated an unnoticeable amount, an incredible amount of time for him. From fifty stories down, someone screamed.

He holstered the gun and turned from the window, falling to his knees next to Natasha’s unmoving form.

“Romanoff! _Natasha!”_ He ran a careful hand over her head, searching for blood or bumps. She didn't move. “Natasha, _come on!”_

Slowly, slowly, Natasha frowned, her fingers twitching. “Oww…” She opened her eyes, blinking away the fog in her eyes. “Those really do sting.”

Fury rocked back on his heels, giving her room to sit up, carefully not touching her. “Good to see you back, Agent.”

“Duncan,” Natasha said suddenly, jerking up in the graceful way only she could pull off. “She--”

“Easy,” he said, glancing at the missing window. Natasha followed his look, rising to her feet too easily for someone who had just nearly died, and crossed to the window.

The wind howled through the gap, bringing the sounds of explosions and the smell of smoke with it.

“This…”

“An emergency escape system. Meant to activate a few small craft to get high-ranking workers to safety.” He joined her at the window, squinting down at the street below. “In the emergency lockdown, the window opening part worked perfectly. The transport...not so much.”

Another wave of heat blasted through the empty window frame and they both looked up, watching the carriers shred each other to pieces as they went down.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Easy, easy, it--it's okay,” Cosima panted, crawling over to the girder and wrapping her arms around it. Delphine was staring at her with a gaze somewhere between predatory and terrified, and Cosima ignored the way the look tore into her. “I've got you, baby, I've got you.”

Her nonsense murmurs turned into a scream as she pulled, the girder barely shifting, but enough--just enough for Delphine to slide sideways and free of the girder. Cosima dropped the beam, sagging to the ground with a strangled gasp, struggling through through the waves of white-hot pain.

Metal slammed into her side, and Cosima went flying across the room without the breath to even shout. She went skidding across the smooth floor, every wound on her body--and several she hadn’t realized she had--jarring along the way. She stopped and gasped, and then Delphine was there, filling Cosima’s vision as she stared down at her with wild eyes.

“Delphine,” Cosima choked, “Delphine--”

_“NO!”_ The metal fist cracked across Cosima’s face again, and her vision whited out for an instant. Delphine surged forward, staring Cosima right in the eye, and, for a moment, froze.

Cosima, for a moment, hoped.

“Delphine,” she tried again, spitting out a mouthful of blood and staggering to her feet. “Delphine, you know who I am.”

“I _DON’T!”_ Delphine charged forward again, and Cosima didn’t raise a hand to stop her, falling to the ground. Something cracked and Cosima gagged on the fresh wave of pain. Delphine’s footsteps stopped for a moment, hesitating, and Cosima pulled herself up again. 

“Yes, you do,” Cosima replied, spreading her hands wide. “Delphine, I love you. And you loved me.” Delphine screamed, something wordless and enraged, and when she lunged Cosima brought the shield up on instinct, scared by something animalistic in Delphine’s eyes.

The sound of metal on metal rang out, hauntingly familiar, and they both froze. Delphine’s breathing was ragged, her eyes jerking from Cosima to the shield, the finest, barest tremble passing through her body.

“Delphine,” Cosima tried again, surprised to hear a plea coming out of her mouth. “Delphine, _please._ I know you know who I am.”

Delphine shook her head, her breath catching, her face neutral but her eyes terrified.

_God,_ it hurt to see Delphine’s eyes looking at her like that.

“Delphine,” she repeated, watching Delphine’s whole body tense. “Let me give you data. Facts. My name is Cosima Elizabeth Niehaus. Not Sadler, Niehaus. I was born on March 9th, 1918, and _you know me._ Look,” she added, suppressing a flinch when she saw Delphine move. “Look, look.”

Slowly, too slowly to be mistaken for anything violent, Cosima reached up for the bottom of her helmet. She saw Delphine freeze anyway, something cold and calculating in her eyes as she tracked Cosima’s movement. Cosima made herself continue anyway, hope like violence growing in her chest with every moment that passed with Delphine still listening to her. The helmet came away at long last, and, for good measure, her hair tie as well.

With a slow, measured movement, Cosima took a step back. 

“My name is Cosima Niehaus, and I love you.” Deliberately, Cosima let the shield fall. It clattered through a gap in the helicarrier’s belly, the wind and the river carrying it away. “And I’m not going to hurt you. Ever again.”

Her duty to the world should’ve been over ninety years ago, and it was definitely over now. Her duty to Delphine--it was something she’d failed in when she’d gone down in that plane, all those years ago, and she wasn’t going to fail in it now.

Or she was going to die trying.

_Well,_ she thought, another spasm tearing through the bullet hole in her stomach, _I’m probably going to die anyway._

“Your name,” she started, careful not to break eye contact. “Is Delphine Esther Cormier--”

_“NO!”_ The shriek was panicked and barely human, and was the only warning Cosima had before she was slammed into the ground hard enough to drive all the air out of her lungs, a wheeze eking its way out of her throat. Delphine was on top of her, all that lethal grace Cosima’d seen in the battles before gone and replaced with a dangerous desperation.

“You’re the love of my life,” Cosima whispered, shaking her head. 

“You’re my mission,” Delphine breathed, her hands gripping painfully at Cosima’s shoulders. “You’re my mission.”

“Delphine--”

_“You’re my mission!”_ Her metal fist cracked across Cosima’s face. Something burst and Cosima’s vision filled with blood. The metal bit into her face again. And again. And again. _“You’re! My! Mission! MY! MISSION!”_

Delphine’s voice cracked, her shining fist pulling back for another blow, and Cosima had the strangest urge to laugh.

The Potomac was beneath them. 

For the second time in her life, Cosima was dying, in a plane plummeting toward cold, cold water, trying to reach the woman she loved.

_Maybe it’ll be quick this time._

“Okay,” she said, barely able to hear herself, but something stopped Delphine anyway. Everything was starting to go dark around the edges, narrowing down to nothing but Delphine, and none of her injuries were hurting so much anymore and that wasn’t a good sign, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. “Okay, Delphine. It’s okay. Just...don’t be afraid, yeah? Don’t be afraid.” She reached up, her arm shaking, and brushed Delphine’s ice-cold cheek. “‘Cause I’m never gonna leave you.”

Her arm fell, and her eyes had never felt so heavy, and there were Delphine’s eyes, they were scared, they were wide, but there was something there, something like who Delphine used to be, and maybe--

Something rattled a distant part of the carrier, the rubble shifted, and the ground opened up beneath Cosima, the Potomac cold and lethal beneath her.

Cosima closed her eyes.

A warm hand clamped around her wrist.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam ached.

He probably should’ve been in Medical right now--in fact, several people had tried to take him there, and it wasn’t as if they were being unreasonable either. He’d taken down a Nazi organization, and a secret government organization with it. He’d been in more hand-to-hand combat than he’d ever seen overseas. He’d jumped from a 41st story building and fallen through a helicopter.

If he’d been anyone else, he’d have dragged his own ass to Medical hours ago. 

But the Captain was still MIA. And so he trudged on, knee-deep in the Potomac, past the rubble and the debris, searching for a scrap of red, white, and blue.

Natasha had appeared beside him like a shadow a few hours ago, still hardly making a sound as she walked along the bank, moving like a taut wire. Neither of them said a word.

“Sir? Ma’am?” An agent in a hijab stood on the shore, her face a mask that didn’t quite hide how shaken she was. “I was told to notify you that we found this.”

A red, white, and blue shield gleamed in her hands.

Sam froze, and out of the corner of her eye saw Natasha go very, very still.

“...Where....?”

“Just a bit downstream, sir,” the agent said, a hint of apology in her voice. “Should I…?”

“No,” Sam said, a little too quickly, when she moved as if she was going to hand it to him. “No, go...go get that somewhere safe. The Captain’s gonna want it when she turns back up.”

“Sir,” she said, backing away. Sam thought about telling her he wasn’t actually a SHIELD agent, but then he remembered SHIELD was dead in the water anyway, so the whole argument was probably moot. Natasha had already turned away, moving down the bank like she wanted to interrogate it.

“We’re gonna find her,” he said, more to fill the silence than anything else. “C’mon, she’s Captain America. ‘S not like a plane crash kept her down long before.”

_Just seventy years._

“We’re going to find her,” Natasha echoed, something deadly in the promise. Whether dead or alive stayed unspoken.

Sam moved forward. He’d hardly ever left anyone behind in Afghanistan, like hell he was going to let Cosima rot in the middle of Washington D.C.

“Falcon.” Natasha’s voice was even, sharp, and snapped Sam into combat mode in an instant. He glanced at her before following her gaze.

The Winter Soldier was slogging toward them, river water running off her in rivulets. There was something clutched vice-like in her arms.

Something red, white, and bleeding.

Sam’s heart dropped to somewhere below the ground, even as he kept his face carefully neutral and nonthreatening. He couldn’t help the curl of purely animal fear that rose in his gut when the Soldier raised her head and looked at him.

Her hair was dark and lank, the arm under Cosima’s legs metal and shining, the arm around Cosima’s shoulders pale and just barely shaking.

Cosima looked dead.

She wasn’t--her lips were trembling though they were nearly blue, her chest hitching every few moments as she struggled to breathe. And she was-- _God,_ she was pale, her long dark, soaking hair sticking to her face and back, her glasses probably somewhere at the bottom of the river. She wrong and so, so small without them.

And that was before taking into account the hellish bruising and swelling covering half her face.

Red dripped down her unmoving body.

“Hey,” Sam said slowly, spreading his arms and hunching his shoulders, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible. He tried desperately to remember what he was supposed to do in hostage situations, his eyes flicking back to Cosima almost against his will. “Hey, man, let’s--let’s take it easy, okay?”

He was sure he was doing this all wrong, but Natasha was deathly still a few feet away, staring at the Soldier.

“She fits.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected the Soldier’s voice to sound like, but it wasn’t this--not quite so soft, not so lost. Her voice was flat, a generic American accent, catching just a little bit wrong on the vowels.

“What?”

“She fits,” she said again, eyes stuttering around Cosima’s face like she couldn’t quite focus on it. “In my arms, she--she fits. She’s my _mission.”_ Her arms tightened around Cosima, and it went against every instinct of Sam’s to stay where he was. “I’ve done this before.”

“Yeah,” Sam echoed, nodding along. “I bet you have. But I bet she’s getting heavy, huh? Can I--okay, okay,” he said quickly, as the Soldier gripped Cosima tighter and jerked backward. “Okay, let’s calm down, it’s all good.”

Cosima made a small choking sound, and grim years of work as a pararescue had him wondering what was gonna get her first, the shock, blood loss, or hypothermia.

The Soldier shook her head, like she was trying to knock something free, hands flexing on Cosima, hard enough to bruise, and Sam found himself wondering how fast he could reach the gun at the small of her back, and if Cosima would ever forgive him.

That’s when the Soldier’s gaze landed on Natasha.

Low, guttural words spilled out of the Soldier’s mouth, something Sam could recognize as Russian but couldn’t, for the life of him, translate.

Natasha replied in kind, nothing moving but her lips, no inflection to her words. Sam barely caught the stricken flash in Natasha’s eyes when Cosima turned her head, exposing the swelling and bruising anew. He was sure the Soldier saw it too.

Natasha said something else, softer, and the Soldier held her gaze for a long moment, breathing raggedly. 

The Soldier stepped forward, toward Natasha. Sam started forward, already headed for the gun, when Natasha put her hand out, palm up.

_Wait._

The Soldier stopped on the riverbank, a few feet from Natasha, just far enough away that Sam knew he couldn’t make it over there if the Soldier tried anything. Natasha could, but Natasha wasn't moving.

Nothing about this felt good.

Jerkily, the Soldier knelt, Cosima still clutched to her chest. Sam held his breath.

She laid Cosima in the mud, gentle, her hands pulling back like she’d been burned. Cosima breathed shakily, head turning toward the Soldier, and the Soldier stood, looking down even as she stepped backward.

The Soldier said one last thing, sharp and commanding, and Natasha nodded. The Soldier raised her head, glancing over Sam. and took another step away.

Natasha lunged forward, falling to her knees at Cosima’s side, and Sam took that as a signal, charging forward.

_God,_ she was small.

“I need gauze, cloth, anything to pack the wound,” he said, and Natasha was moving instantly, tearing off her tac suit’s sleeve and passing it over, already barking orders for a med evac into her comm. _“Shit,_ she’s going septic already. How long was she in the river?”

“No idea,” Natasha replied, watching Sam hold pressure against the main bullet wound before slipping from her position to kneel at Cosima’s head, gently taking Cosima’s head into her lap. “She’s not quite hypothermic, can’t have been long.”

“She‘s gonna be if we don’t get her out of these clothes.” Wordlessly, Natasha pulled out a knife and passed it over. Sam took it with a nod, tearing through the Captain’s suit. Cosima made a small distressed noise as the cool spring air hit her newly exposed skin and Natasha made a wordless shushing noise, running her fingers over Cosima’s scalp.

Sam felt sick at the amount of purple bruising that’d been hiding underneath her clothes. Anyone who wasn’t superpowered would’ve been long dead.

“I've got another bleeder,” Sam said as he pulled off one of the sleeves, a still-dribbling stab wound in her shoulder. “Mostly healed, but I don’t like the look of that redness.”

“We‘re not going to avoid infection at this point,” Natasha sighed, ripping off another wad of uniform and handing it to him. _“Idiot.”_

“Not arguing with that.” The sound of a medical team finally reached them, a team of at least ten EMTs with blessedly full medical packs charging forward.

_“Jesus,”_ one of them muttered, staring down at the national icon. “What the hell did this?”

_“Not_ your concern right now,” Sam snapped, maybe a little too harshly. “Do your job.”

The EMT complied, and Sam stepped back to let them do their jobs. It was almost worse, watching them descend on and move her, white gauze turning red far too quickly for his liking.

“Let‘s go.” Sam started at the sound of Natasha’s voice, right next to his elbow. “C‘mon.”

“Widow--”

“I‘m taking you to the _hospital,_ Sam,” Natasha snapped gently. “The surgery’s going to be rough on her. It’ll be better for her to not wake up alone.”

“And where are you going?”

“I have some things to take care of,” she evaded lightly. “I’ll be along soon enough.” She raised an eyebrow when Sam hesitated, torn between pushing for more information and insisting on Natasha getting checked before she went anywhere. “You want the ride or not, Wilson?”

“Fine,” he said at last. “But I’m checking your bullet wound on the way.”

Natasha sighed, exasperated and just the tiniest bit fond. “So long as you can do it while I'm driving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for not being around on tumblr or here much--life has been a drama and a half lately, and I'm just trying to keep my head above water (someday I will learn that taking above the maximum number of college credits in a semester? maybe not good). I read every comment you write and I adore them all, even if I don't respond for a while, and I adore each and every one of you. As always, so much credit to the wonderful Noelle and Chaya who made this all happen.
> 
> <3


	16. Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: discussions of death, torture, and violence, brief mention of gore/body horror.

_“I come up hard, awful hard, and had to win, then start all over and win again...”_

There was something hot and painful lodged in her gut, something tickling in her nose, and the side of her face was throbbing uncomfortably. She frowned, trying to squirm away from the pain.

Slowly, feeling like her eyes were glued shut, Cosima blinked. The sunlight felt like a spotlight aimed directly at her, and it took a long moment for her to orient herself.

It took her an even longer moment to figure out who she was with.

“On your left,” she muttered, smiling on the unbruised side of her face, and Sam looked over with a grin.

“You little shit.”

Cosima huffed a laugh, stopping when she felt the twinge of not-quite-healed ribs. Sam started to lean forward, but quickly stopped at Cosima’s glare. “How long?”

“You were out of it for about three days,” Sam said, the levity in his voice not totally masking the look in his eyes. “A very long three days, I might add.”

“And I’m not fully healed?” She shifted with a wince. “I invented the serum and I’m disappointed in the stuff.”

“I think it was more worried about the sepsis.”

“Oh. Damn.” Cosima didn’t have anything to say to that, so she fell silent, reaching up to adjust the cannula.

And promptly froze at the sight of her fingernails.

“I’m gonna assume this wasn’t your work,” she said dryly, waggling her fingers at him. Her nails were a neon pink, shining and covered in glitter, the cuticles perfect and the faintest scent of sweet lotion hanging around the edges.

“Nah. Although she did me too,” Sam said, raising a hand to show off his own dark blue nails. “She said she knew, um, Nattie? Honestly, I didn't question it too much, she was furious with you and kind of scarier than HYDRA.”

“Krystal,” Cosima said fondly, examining her nails for a few more moments before tucking her hand back under the covers. “Yeah, I should really apologize to her--I think I scared her.”

“You scared the hell out of all of us,” Sam pointed out. Cosima winced a little at that. She hadn't been expecting to wake up at all.

“How bad was it?”

“Well,” Sam said, leaning back like he was about to tell a story. “Let’s see. Broken ribs, three bullet wounds, a mess of internal bleeding, a hell of a lot of bruises, near-drowning, near-hypothermia, and you went septic in the first two hours.”

“That’s not actually as bad as I expected,” Cosima said with almost genuine-sounding brightness. “How long did it take you to fish me out of the river?”

“About that,” Sam said slowly, leaning forward. “Natasha and I weren’t actually the ones who found you. It was the Soldier.”

“Oh.” Cosima close her eyes and turned away. “Did you kill her?”

“No. Cosima,” Sam said, waiting for her to turn to face him before he continued. “She pulled you out of the river. We had to convince her to let you go.”

“She...” Cosima stopped and swallowed. “She knew me?”

“She did a damn good job of trying to end it,” Sam said with the air of someone trying very hard to not give false hope. “But she might have saved your life.”

“When you found me, she wasn’t trying to kill me.”

Sam shook his head. “No, she wasn't.”

“She wasn't trying to kill me,” Cosima repeated in a low whisper. “She wasn’t...I wanted her to be in there, but I’m a scientist, the data and conclusions don’t change because you want them to, because you need them to be different, but...” She took a long, shaking breath, not looking at anything in particular. “She wasn’t trying to kill me.”

“C‘mere.” Sam pulled himself out of his chair and had the guardrails on the side of the bed lowered in a few seconds. “Cosima.”

Sam didn’t try to hush her, or soothe her with lies about things going to be okay. Instead, he let her press herself into him and sob as the sun slowly descended in the sky.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Soldier _hurt._

There was no logic to it, she was relatively uninjured, she was _functional,_ but she stood on the edge of the Potomac, deep enough in a thicket of trees that none of the emergency workers could see her, and she _hurt._

Captain America made her hurt.

This was not good. This was detrimental. The Soldier had a mission to kill Captain America, and Captain America lived, and the Soldier hurt.

_Report back._ The thought was not the Soldier’s but was familiar anyway, the orders that came along with a throbbing ache in her skull. She turned unthinkingly, moving for headquarters.

The Soldier was unsure of what would happen now. The Soldier had failed a mission. Failure was unacceptable.

But the Soldier still needed to report back.

It was easy to move unnoticed through these streets, easier than usual--civilians crowded around, huddling, whispering, staring at the wreckage and not the woman moving silently in the opposite direction. _Captain America,_ they were saying. _Wreck in the Potomac. Saw the carriers go down. Terrorism. Unsafe. Captain America. Captain America._

_Cosima._

_Captain Cosima Sadler,_ one woman said into her phone while the Soldier slipped past, and the Soldier was struck with the sudden urge to correct her. It was wrong, Captain America was not Sadler, but Niehaus, it had been changed when--

When--

_Report back,_ something inside her head thought, and another flash of pain lanced through her skull. This was ordinary pain, the sort that accompanied her always, the sort that kept her functioning. The hurt that the Soldier had, now since encountering the Captain, that was different.

That was--

_Report back._

The bank was empty, like most of the buildings in the street. People had abandoned their posts to watch the carriers tear each other apart, and the Soldier slid back into the vault even more easily than usual, metal arm curled close to her chest.

It was functioning-- _she_ was functioning--but it felt wrong to look at, didn’t seem right for the silver to emerge from her sleeve instead of flesh. There was a time when there was a flesh arm, there was a time when the arm was slick with blood, mangled enough that white bone was sticking out of twisted red muscles, there was a time before _that--_

_Report back._

The Soldier shook her head like a dog shaking off a blow, and the fingers on her flesh hand stopped trembling. Her metal arm, steady as ever, stayed curled above her heart.

Those thoughts were not productive. Those thoughts were unnecessary. There was a mission that she had not completed. She was to report back. She was to follow orders. She was to kill Captain America.

(She hadn’t killed Captain America)

She was to receive orders and follow orders. That was all she was.

(She hadn’t killed Captain America)

The vault doors opened smoothly when the Soldier pressed a bloody thumbprint to the scanner. The chair sat in the center of the room, restraints open and waiting, the metal clamps ready to settle on her head raised in the air like a halo. Monitors and equipment lined the walls, screens black, lights dimmed, ready to be turned on and hooked up.

There was nobody in the room.

The Soldier blinked, her mind taking an unacceptably long time to catch up. There were no techs, no handlers, no guards, no Rachel Duncan. There were chairs pushed to the side, wires that hadn’t been properly hung up.

They left in a hurry. They’d left whatever they couldn’t carry behind. They’d run. Fled.

They hadn’t come back.

_Report back_ echoed in her skull, dull and aching. Orders. She was to receive and follow orders and her orders were to report back and she had come because there was no way she could not, no way to _not_ follow orders, and here she was but there was no one here and her head hurt and she hadn’t killed Captain America she had her orders but she _couldn’t_ kill Captain America and now she _hurt,_ not like the ache in her head but an ache that was deeper, in her gut, in her _chest--_

_Report back._

Her flesh hand was trembling again.

_Report back._

She was to follow orders.

_Report back._

She was the tool, the Soldier. That was all she was. She needed--

She--

She _hurt._

_Report back._

She walked backward, flesh hand clenched into a fist to stop it trembling, too militarily precise to stumble over her own feet but moving quickly all the same, until her back hit the wall. In the corner of the room farthest from the chair, farthest from all the machines, she slowly sank to the ground, knees pulled up to her chest, arms at her sides, eyes fixed on the chair.

_Report back. Report back. Report back._

She fell into a sniper’s stillness, watching the chair, listening for the door, waiting for--

For--

Waiting.

_Report back_ throbbed in her head like a heartbeat, like a wound, again and again, and the Soldier didn’t move, didn’t close her eyes. 

_Report back. Report back. Report back. Report--_

The Soldier hurt.

The Soldier waited.

The Soldier waited for a long time.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima stood in the doorway of her apartment, the crime scene tape torn and hanging limply in the doorway, and stared.

It was ridiculous--she’d never even _liked_ the stupid place, had nothing personal there except for maybe her pot stash, and that was easily replaceable--so there was no reason for her to be upset. Fury hadn’t even died here, in the end.

But it did mean that she was lost in this century, again, and without a place to live.

She ran a finger over one of the bullet holes in the wall and pulled out her phone, wondering how much it cost to remodel an apartment in the 2010’s.

“Oh, _hell_ no.”

Tony Stark snatched the phone out of her hands.

“Tony--”

“Don’t tell me _this_ is where Captain America’s been hiding for the past two years.” Tony walked straight past Cosima like he owned the place, ignoring Cosima’s startled look. “God, this is a _shoebox._ An ancient shoebox. When was this built, the 1970’s?”

“You’re talking to a nonagenarian, Tony, be careful calling things old.”

“Speaking of old,” Tony continued, carefully casual as he inspected one of Cosima’s windowsills for dust. “Was it a 1940s thing to run off on suicide missions without even asking for help?”

_Oh._ Cosima shifted uncomfortably, suddenly understanding. “Tony…”

“Seriously, did you hit your head or something since we saw you last? Because _something’s_ gotta be responsible for that sudden drop in I.Q. points. Delayed freezer burn?”

Cosima stiffened, anger covering up the guilt. “There wasn’t exactly _time_ to call in the Avengers--”

“Didn’t think of a phone call? A text? A _carrier pigeon--”_

“HYDRA was everywhere! They could’ve been watching, listening--”

“I’m Tony fucking Stark! Do you really think I didn’t have a plan in place for just that?”

“How was I supposed to know that you’d come?”

The sentence landed heavily between the two of them, knocking them both silent. Tony looked up at her for half a moment before turning away again, but not before Cosima saw him swallow heavily.

“Shit. Tony, I...that is not what I meant,” Cosima said, pressing one hand to her forehead. “It...that...I... _shit.”_

“No, no, it’s fine,” Tony said quickly, folding his arms protectively over his chest. Under her breath, Cosima swore again. “No worries, Cap, you’ve really made your position clear--”

“Damnit, Tony, can you _listen?”_ Tony’s jaw snapped shut with a click, and Cosima sighed harshly, annoyed with herself. “I didn’t mean--it’s not about you, okay?” she said at last, huffing and crossing her arms. “Yeah, I know that’s unusual for you, Mr. Stark, but I swear, it’s not.” He pulled a small smile at that, and Cosima pushed on. “I’ve been in this century for maybe two and a half years, okay? There’s kind of a lot to get used to. Including...including friends. Shut up,” she added quickly when Tony’s face broke into a wide grin. “You made me say it, okay?”

“We’re _friends,”_ he said, somewhere between the ruthless teasing between siblings and genuine delight. 

“Shut up!”

“Well, as your _friend--”_ Cosima groaned. “I guess I’ll forgive you. Provided, of course, you do something for me.”

“Oh, God.” Cosima rolled her eyes. “If you’re gonna make me streak or something--”

“Move into the Tower.”

“What?”

“Avengers Tower, née Stark. Move in. Spare me the indignity of knowing someone who lives somewhere like _this.”_

“Is this…” Cosima blinked, grinning a little all the same. “Are you trying to make me move in with you by insulting me?”

“Is it working?”

“You’re a ridiculous little man.”

“You’re six inches shorter than I am.” 

“Did you actually look up how tall I--okay, don’t answer that,” Cosima said, Tony’s grin remaining bright. “You’re not worried about your reputation? People could say you’re defiling a national icon, with Captain America living in the same building as you?”

“Oh, please. You’ll be the one tarnishing my reputation, if anything. Besides, it only makes sense. Get all the Avengers in one place so the next time alien invasion threatens New York.” 

“So this is all for the good of the world,” Cosima said dryly.

“Oh, absolutely. Philanthropist, remember?” There was still something bright, like hope, in Tony’s eyes. “What do you say? Wanna be heathens together?”

“I might not be around a lot,” she felt obliged to warn him. “I have...there’s someone I need to find. So I’m going to be off trying to track her down.”

“Her?” Tony asked with a raised, lascivious eyebrow. Seeming to sense that this was more serious, however, he adjusted his expression accordingly. “We’re not a boarding school, Cap, you’re not going to have a curfew or anything like that. You can go wherever the hell you need to, just know that you’ve got somewhere to come back to. That somewhere being my very well-furnished, luxurious, glamourous tower.”

“Does that speech work on all the Avengers?” Cosima teased.

“Hell, it works better on the ladies. And the gents.”

“Alright, you degenerate rich playboy,” Cosima laughed, and Tony chuckled along with her. “You win. Set aside a couple of rooms for me, I might stop by. If I feel like it.”

“You wound me, Capsicle.” Tony clutched at his arc reactor dramatically. “Wound me.”

“Yeah, you’ve had worse.”

“I’ll get you the numbers of some world-class remodelers and contractors,” Tony said like she hadn’t spoken at all, mind already somewhere else. “You get the 21st floor.”

“A--a whole floor?”

“Banner’s on 18, Hawkeye has 31, Pep and I have the penthouse, Thor has whatever the hell floor he wants whenever he’s on the planet, and I’m too scared to tell Romanoff that she can only have one floor so she just kind of goes wherever. So yeah, there’s no reason you can’t have floor 21--on one condition.”

“What?” 

“For God’s sake, next time you topple a government agency, at least give the rest of us a _heads-up.”_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day was sunny, cloudless, and unseasonably warm. Cosima strode across the bright green grass, the bright red coat tossed over one arm and flowers in her hand a sharp contrast to her dark sweater and skirt. Sam Wilson met her at the gate, grinning and embracing her briefly before they continued up the hill.

The headstones around them gleamed in the sunlight.

“Nice coat,” Sam said, and Cosima chuckled. 

“A get-well present from Krystal,” she explained. “She left it in my hospital room when I was asleep along with a note. Apparently we _absolutely_ have to go on a shopping trip soon. She’s convinced that there’s something in this century that’ll suit my tastes.”

“Do you buy it?”

“Well, there’s a lot more we’re allowed to wear now,” she said, gesturing to her boots and exposed knees. “I’m thinking I might get into that grunge stuff? Maybe punk rock. How’d you think I’d look in black leather? Heavy dark eyeshadow, blonde streaks on one side of my hair and braids on the other, you know?”

Sam stared at her for a long moment before shaking his head. “You’re messing with me again.”

“Probably,” Cosima laughed. “I’d look hot though.”

A figure in a dark hoodie and sunglasses stood at a grave a few feet away and raised a hand in greeting. Cosima and Sam nodded back, falling silent as they both approached him.

“Brought’cha something,” Cosima said as they drew level with him, holding out the flowers.

“Did you appreciate it when people brought you flowers, back in the 50’s?”

“I don’t know, since I was dead. As are you now so. Condolences, Nick,” Cosima said with a shrug. Nick Fury didn’t laugh or remove either his glasses or hood, but he did take the flowers with a dry smirk and place them at his own grave. 

_The path of the righteous man. Ezekiel 25:17,_ read the polished stone, and Cosima raised an eyebrow.

“‘I will carry out great vengeance on them and punish them in my wrath’?” she asked, years of church from her childhood allowing her to quote the verse. “You realize you’ve got a misquote on your grave, right?”

“Our 21st century crash course hasn’t gotten to Pulp Fiction yet,” Sam interjected, a dry smile on his lips. 

“I’m not going to pretend to understand that reference,” Cosima said, shaking her head. “Still, doesn’t seem like the kind of bible verse you’d want on your grave.”

Fury shifted his stance, an old soldier’s stance settling over his shoulders.

“We’ve been data-mining HYDRA’s files,” he explained. “Looks like a lot of rats didn’t go down with the ship, so I’m going to smoke them out myself. I’m headed to Europe tonight. Was wondering if you wanted to come with me.”

Cosima considered it for half a heartbeat--of striding back across the ocean and destroying HYDRA at long last--and dismissed it just as quickly.

“I’ll come,” she promised, a vicious edge creeping into her voice. “I’ll come and I will burn HYDRA to ash. But I’m not doing it until I’ve got her back at my side.”

Nick nodded, unsurprised. “And you, Wilson? I could use someone with your abilities.”

“Sorry,” Sam said. “I’m really more of a soldier than a spy.”

“Alright then.” Fury didn’t press, just stuck out his hand. Cosima shook it first and then Sam, looking surprised, followed. “Anybody asks for me, you tell them they can find me right here,” he said with a jerk of his head toward the gravestone. He dropped Sam’s hand, almost looked like he was about to say something else, then turned and strode away.

“Did I miss a Kodak moment?”

“You know I don’t get that reference,” Cosima said, but she was grinning all the same. Natasha smiled back, looking just as comfortable in her blazer as she did in her mission suit, or in anything else. “How was the hearing?”

“The same as any other hearing,” Natasha replied with an easy shrug. “Scared people searching for someone to blame, the government trying to figure out a way to control it all. It sounds like they’ve basically given up on getting you in to testify, though.”

“Good, because there was no way in hell I was ever going to do that.” Natasha huffed a ghost of a laugh, her eyes trailing after the shrinking figure of Fury. Cosima followed the look. “Are you going with him?”

“No,” Natasha said immediately, her smile turning mocking--though who it was supposed to be mocking, Cosima wasn’t sure.

“Staying in D.C., then?”

“Nope,” she said, facing Cosima directly at last. “The little info dump I did blew all my covers. Time for me to put together a new one.”

“Sounds hard,” Cosima said neutrally. Natasha’s smile turned into something more genuine, and more wolfish.

“I’m hoping so.” She shifted, letting Cosima get a glimpse of the file she was carrying under one arm, and a flash of Russian text on the cover made Cosima’s breath stop.

“Is that--?”

“Yeah,” Natasha said, holding the file in front of her but not holding it out for Cosima to take quite yet. “I called in a few favors from Kiev to get it. Do me a favor?” she added quickly, and Cosima glanced up from the folder, surprised to find that she’d been staring at it.

“What?”

“Keep that appointment with Krystal.” Cosima wasn’t even surprised by the fact that Natasha knew about that.

“You want me to go on a shopping spree?” she asked, and Natasha laughed a little.

“I want you to have a life beyond this. This stuff can eat you alive.”

“We’ll see.” Cosima made a jerky movement, her need to know what was in the plain looking manila folder almost outweighing both her manners and her knowledge that nobody took anything from Natasha that Natasha didn’t want taken. Natasha smirked and held the file out to her, her hand darting out to cover Cosima’s before Cosima could open it.

“You don’t need to know this to find her, you know. You might not want to read this.”

“I know I don’t want to.” Cosima glanced down at the file like she couldn’t help herself. “But that doesn’t matter. It’s what I need. I need to know what happened to her, to--” She swallowed, the word feeling painfully stuck in her throat. “To Delphine.”

Natasha nodded, pulling her hand back and letting Cosima hold the file delicately, torn between wanting to hug it--her best chance of finding Delphine--close to her chest, and pushing it--the papers that documented all the horrors of what had happened, everything Delphine had been through while Cosima was sleeping under the ice--as far away as she could.

There was something like a shadow of sadness, like happiness, in Natasha’s unreadable eyes.

“Okay.” Natasha leaned over, serpent-quick and feather-gentle, and pressed a kiss to Cosima’s forehead. “Be as safe as you can be, Captain. Wilson,” she added, straightening up with a nod toward Sam. Sam nodded back, and then Natasha was gone, slipping away through the gravestones and sunshine as easily as she’d appeared in the first place.

The file felt so flimsy in Cosima’s hands, just paper and cardstock, and it almost infuriated her--this was the file that was going to change everything, this was full of everything she needed and would never be able to unsee, this was Delphine’s story--and it occurred to Cosima that all she was doing was putting off taking that first step.

Putting off doing what she was terrified of and needed to do.

Taking a deep breath, she flipped it open.

The photo on the first page was in black and white, more like something from Cosima’s time than this era, of a long dark tank with one round window in the center. And in the center of the window…

Delphine.

Delphine, with her hair in those limp dark waves she’d had when Cosima last saw her, Delphine, unnaturally still even for a photograph, Delphine, looking somewhere between sleeping and dead.

_Delphine._

Cosima passed her fingertip slowly over the image.

“You’re going after her,” Sam said, not a question.

“It’s not your fight, Sam.” Cosima closed the folder and held it tight to her chest. “You don’t need to come with me--I understand totally if you don’t want to. It would make sense, actually. No hard feelings.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Sam said. “When do we start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another quick update as I dash off to do other things. I'm not quite 100% happy with this chapter, but didn't want to leave you guys without an update! As always, all my love and appreciation to Chaya (therenegadegabbai) and Noelle, and every single one of you beautiful readers. You're all stars.
> 
> <3


	17. Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: mentions of death, war, grief, and mourning.

The Soldier moved through the busy streets, the sleeve of a stolen black sweatshirt pulled low over her left arm and the hood hiding her face almost completely.

She had waited in the bank vault for precisely two-hundred fifty-two hours and thirty minutes. The Soldier had never been left unsupervised for more than twenty-four hours unless she was on a mission--it was a high-priority protocol. The facts were that not even a low level handler had come for her two-hundred twenty-eight hours and thirty minutes past the necessary time.

Conclusion: they were not coming back for her.

So she left.

The fact that she left fit uncomfortably around her, leaves her off-balance and wary. The Soldier is not meant to leave. The Soldier is not meant to go this long without being wiped. The Soldier is mostly-empty, there to be filled with the details needed for the mission and drained when the mission is done.

The Soldier’s primary purpose is _obey._

The Soldier has no one to obey.

Hurt and cloudiness and confusion and hurt rise up in her head the way they always do if she is left too long without being wiped--things that are illogical, that she can’t quantify-- _your name is Delphine Esther Cormier you’re the love of my life it’s okay I’m never gonna leave you_ \--the Soldier clenches the metal fist tight enough that it whirrs in protest and she shakes her head, pushing the pain and the fog as far away as she can.

A child, approximately six years old, bumped into the Soldier and stares up at her, wide-eyed and gaping. The Soldier froze, shoving her left hand deeper into her pocket. The child didn’t seem to mind, blinking owlishly and almost smiling.

“Go away,” the Soldier managed at last, the words rusty and grating. This, somehow, made a grin burst across the child’s face, and he actually _giggled._

“You look like her!”

The Soldier shook her head minutely. Part of her knew she should leave, disengage with the child and return to--continue--to return to the shadows and move from there.

Part of her knew she shouldn’t do that while leaving this witness.

“Look,” the boy continued, unconcerned. He dug a sticky hand into his backpack and the Soldier pulled her shoulders back, let a knife fall into her hand, waited for a gun, waited for a bomb--

The boy thrust a well-worn packet that boldly proclaimed _CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE EXHIBIT. SEE IT EXCLUSIVELY AT THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATIONAL HISTORY_ into her face. After a moment, the Soldier remembered to blink.

“It’s here,” he explained, flipping pages so close to the Soldier’s face that she could feel them ruffle her nose. “Page six--like me, six. I’m six,” he added, as if this information was vital. He smoothed the well-worn packet’s creases out and shoved it in the Soldier’s face again. “Captain America’s best friend. The one who--the one who was loyal and true and Captain America’s right hand woman to the very end. She was the only Howling Commando to give her life in direct service to Captain America,” he said, his face scrunched in concentration as if he was recalling the last part from memory.

The picture was small, black and white and cramped in one corner of the packet between large color images of the Captain. The woman in it was half in profile, looking at someone out of frame. Her hair was blonde and curly, tied in a neat bun at the base of her neck. A crisp military collar wrapped around her neck. Her eyes were bright. She was smiling at someone out of frame, half-laughing.

The Soldier didn’t recognize the woman.

“You see?”

_“Isaac!”_ A woman with the same light-brown hair as the boy grabbed his hand, pulling him back into a hug. The Soldier stiffened, grip tightening on the knife--she’d let her guard down. The woman never should’ve been able to surprise the Soldier. “Oh Isaac, baby, I told you not to run off! I was _terrified!”_ The woman glanced up, spotting the Soldier and faltering. She pulled the boy closer, half-shielding him; her shoulders hunched and her gaze darted from the boy to the Soldier and back again. Her posture was defensive. Terrified.

Good.

_“Isaac,”_ she continued in a harsh whisper, probably too low for most people other than the boy to hear. “We do _not_ talk to strangers.”

“But _Mom--”_

_“Isaac.”_ The woman gripped the boy’s shoulders tight and he squirmed. She didn’t stop, not looking back as she steered him firmly away. The boy managed to turn enough to toss the Soldier a small wave. His packet fell to the ground and he was hurried on before he could pick it up.

The crowds had thinned considerably, most of the people focused on moving forward as quickly as they could instead of looking back. The Soldier had committed assassinations in these conditions before. It was simple enough to bury a knife in the target’s back and disappear before anyone realized anything had happened.

The Soldier knew to leave no witnesses. The boy and the woman were well within range. The knife was primed within her hand.

She slid the knife up her sleeve and bent to pick up the packet instead. It was creased, worn at the seams, a smudge on the corner of the cover as if something had been dropped and then quickly and clumsily cleaned away.

The Captain smiled on the cover, right hand raised in a crisp salute. The red, white, and blue shield gleamed where it rested on the other arm.

The Soldier ran a metal finger over the Captain’s face, then over the large words written across the top. _SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATIONAL HISTORY._

She folded the packet and slid it up her sleeve, next to her knives, and turned toward the museum.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Cosima Elizabeth Niehaus, what the _hell_ have you done now?”

“Hi, Peggy,” Cosima said, a little sheepishly, holding the roses she’d brought half as a shield and half as a tribute to an angry goddess. “I guess you heard about D.C., huh.”

“As if anyone could keep it from me.” Peggy was clearly having a good day. Her face was bright and animated, even as she relied on the pillows to keep her sitting upright. There was a clear, brilliant spark in her warm brown eyes, and more than ever Cosima could see that woman she’d gone to war beside, both two years and half a century ago. “I just can’t leave you alone without you crashing something large and metal into a body of water, can I?’

“You know me, Peggy.” A nurse breezed in with an empty vase and Cosima dropped the roses into it with a grateful smile. Her sleeves rode up a bit as she did, a few bruises still mottling her skin. It was a testament to the power of the serum--and the combined genius of Erskine, Cosima, and Delphine--that ugly bruising and a lingering soreness was all that remained of the attack of less than two weeks ago. It was a testament to the Soldier’s strength that anything still remained at all. “Always causing trouble.”

“Yes, that is your calling card.” Peggy levelled a firm stare at Cosima. “And don’t think that I can’t tell what those roses are meant to be. I am not so easily bought.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Cosima settled the vase on the windowsill and pulled up a chair at Peggy’s bedside. Peggy immediately reached out a hand, gesturing impatiently until Cosima took it in one of her own.

“How are you, Cosima?”

“I’m fine.”

Peggy arched an eyebrow, as elegant and graceful as ever. “You piloted a multi-million dollar craft into the Potomac, but you’re _fine.”_

Cosima pulled a smirk onto her face. _“Technically,_ it was crashing and I fell out--”

“So much better.” Peggy squeezed Cosima’s hand, so gently, so kindly, and Cosima crumpled.

“Peggy, I’m _sorry,”_ she gasped, using all her self-control to keep herself from hurting Peggy even as Peggy pulls herself forward on the bed, wraps her other spun-sugar fragile hand around Cosima’s superpowered one. “Oh God, _God,_ I’m _sorry,_ Peggy, I--”

“Shh,” Peggy murmured, rubbing Cosima’s hand between her own. “This is _not_ your fault.”

“It feels like it,” Cosima admitted, shaking her head weakly. _“God,_ look at me, I couldn’t even die properly in my era, what the hell am I trying to accomplish in this one--”

“Cosima,” Peggy said sharply. “This is not _your_ fault.”

Cosima looked up to see tears gathering in Peggy’s eyes. “Peggy--oh, Peggy, no, I didn’t mean--”

“It is my fault, Cosima,” Peggy insisted, her voice strong and brooking no argument. “And I won’t have you blaming yourself because you’ve got some foolish hero complex of an idea that you were somehow meant to save and protect the world while you were buried under miles of arctic ice. You left the world in our hands and it was us--it was me--who let you down.”

“Peggy, _no,”_ Cosima repeated, bringing her other hand up to wrap around both of Peggy’s. “You didn’t let me down--you never did. HYDRA’s this massive multi-national group literally overflowing with racist, sexist, anti-Semitic fuckwads with deep pockets full of blood money and from what I’ve read about the 60’s the U.S. government had its head shoved up its ass for decades so I bet they weren’t helpful. What were you supposed to do, take it all on by yourself? You’re bad _ass_ but you couldn’t do it alone. Nobody can do it alone.”

Peggy smiled a little, clearly unconvinced even as she tilted Cosima’s head up and made Cosima look her in the eyes. “If you’re so convinced of that, how can you keep blaming yourself?”

Cosima looked at Peggy for a long moment. “I hate it when you do that.”

“I know, dear. And believe me, I would be rather annoyed with you for burning down what I spent my entire life building, but well, you did have good reasons.” There was Peggy’s familiar sense of humor--dry and dark, understating the deadly serious, and Cosima couldn’t help smiling back. “Sometimes the best we can do is start over.”

“You make it sound so simple.” Cosima looked down at Peggy’s hand, clasped between both of her own. Peggy’s hand was no smaller than Cosima’s, but the skin was soft and delicate like flower petals, like it was already halfway to not existing anymore. It was covered in fine wrinkles, crossing and wrapping almost tenderly around every inch of her hand. Cosima’s own hands were lightly tanned, young and strong, and even motionless it was obvious how easy it would be for her to shatter Peggy’s. “People always talk about that, you know? Fresh starts. How wonderful they’d be, to go somewhere everything is brilliant and new and nothing is familiar.” Cosima snorted a little, glancing at the gauzy curtains over Peggy’s window. “Wish I could tell them that it’s bullshit. And really goddamn lonely.”

“A little less lonely than it used to be, I hope,” Peggy said gently after a long moment. “Anthony always talks about you when he comes by to visit, you know. And there was more than just you taking down those helicarriers.”

Cosima didn’t quite know who Peggy meant by ‘Anthony’ and was too afraid of breaking the delicate spell of lucidity to ask. “Yeah, I had a couple people fighting with me. Natasha and Sam. I should introduce you, you’d get along--probably too well, to be honest.” 

“There we are, you see? And if you never need backup again, I expect to be the first person you call, Niehaus.”

“You’ve got it, Peg,” Cosima laughed. Peggy smiled back, sinking a little more into the pillows propping her up.

“There’s something else you want to tell me.” It wasn’t a question.

“Peggy…” Cosima tilted her head back, blinking hard at tears that were not entirely unexpected. “Peggy, Delphine got captured by HYDRA. Brainwashed, or-or tortured or both, I don’t know, but they must’ve given her a version of the serum too, because she’s here, in this century, and she tried to kill me. And then she pulled me out of the Potomac and gave me to Sam and Nat and I...don’t know what to do with that. Any of that.”

“Delphine is alive?” Peggy’s voice was wavering, the closest to feeble Peggy had ever seemed, and Cosima held her breath; but Peggy managed to stay grounded in the moment, gently patting Cosima’s hand. “That’s wonderful.”

“She tried to kill me,” Cosima repeated, unsure if her point was really coming across. “HYDRA had her, HYDRA’s had her for--God, they’ve had her for years. She didn’t even know who I was.”

“Well, none of that is good at all,” Peggy said matter-of-factly. “But she’s alive. You’re alive. You’re allowed to be happy about that, Cosima.” 

“But--” 

“Let me rephrase,” Peggy interrupted. “I’ve just learned that the organization I dedicated my life to founding and running was infiltrated from the start. Infiltrated by the very people it was designed to fight--people who are the absolute scum of the earth. I’ve learned that the apocalypse came within seconds of happening, being carried out by HYDRA in the skin of my organization. I’ve learned that one of the women who I respected has been HYDRA’s captive for decades, and has been brainwashed to the point that she tried to kill the love of her life and one of my very closest friends--that is you, Cosima, by the way,” she added sharply. “I’ve learned that she very nearly succeeded in that. I’m _damn_ well going to cling to those few good things that have come out of these last few days and however much I may have disliked her in the beginning, Doctor Cormier being alive is a good thing. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Cosima admitted. “Yeah, it is.”

“And you’re going to find your way back to each other,” Peggy said, full of stone-solid confidence.

“How can you say that?” Cosima asked before she could stop herself.

“Because I know it,” Peggy said firmly. “Cosima, you didn’t see what it was like after your plane went down. Doctor Cormier headed every search for you, went along on more expeditions than should’ve been physically possible. When the federal grants dried up, she and Howard kept funding more, leading more. She believed in you,” Peggy said, so simply that it made fresh tears spring into Cosima’s eyes. “More truly and fully than I’ve ever seen anyone believe in anything, she believed in you.” 

Cosima ducked her head, trying to hide the tears creeping down her cheek. Peggy, true to form, didn’t miss a trick, and pressed a handkerchief into Cosima’s palm.

“If anyone can find each other again after all of this, it’s you two.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The usual crowds were absent from the Smithsonian Museum. Most people were still frightened from the attacks, travelling to stay with distant relatives or hiding in their homes or other places that they could pretend that they were safe. It meant that there were fewer crowds for the Soldier to melt into, but also fewer eyes for her to avoid.

The cameras were easy to duck, all in obvious places and barely concealed. The children were harder, the few that were around looking at everything and everyone. The Soldier pulled the hood of the stolen sweatshirt lower over her face, kept her hair tucked up and hidden away, and moved forward.

_Captain America: Living Legend_ read the text on one side of the entryway, written over a painted American flag. The other side depicted Captain America, overly large and dressed in the older-era red, white, and blue uniform, the shield she was never seen without on her back. The Captain was looking over her shoulder. The Captain was smiling. The Captain looked light. Unafraid.

The Soldier looked at the painting for a long moment.

She slipped into the exhibit itself behind a few people who were loudly speculating whether the Captain had truly drowned in the Potomac or not. The exhibit was filled with more paintings, colorful and large, of names and faces she remembered from file folders and, blurrily, from somewhere else, seeing faces and moments as if from deep, deep beneath water and ice.

_Gabe Jones--member of the Howling Commandos--deceased. Jim Morita--member of the Howling Commandos--radio and technology expert--deceased. Timothy Dugan--commander of the Howling Commandos after the fall of Captain America--’Dum Dum’ Dugan--deceased. James Montgomery Falsworth--member of the Howling Commandos--decorated soldier--loved his ales--deceased. Jaques Dernier--member of the Howling Commandos--explosives expert--member of the French Resistance--he had never been to Lille but he had watched his home burn as well, he had watched the Nazis march over all he held dear--they had drunk together and talked in low French tones none of the others could hear--he wished her a quiet Shabbat shalom on those Friday evenings it was quiet enough to watch the sun go down--deceased._

The paintings were full of movement and life. Men were shouting, turning to each other, wielding rifles sometimes and smiles more often, all in the same style as the first painting of the Captain. The Soldier moved past them quickly, heading instead toward the photos and descriptions.

_Data._

There were interviews, video reels from the 1940s and from recent years, all depicting various members of the Howling Commandos aging and greying and mourning. The stories were all different--one told of being ambushed in France, another of liberating a labor camp in Germany, another of attacking a HYDRA base whose location was still classified--but the messages were the same.

_The Captain was a hero. The Doc was a hero. It was an honor and a privilege to alongside them. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for them._

_I miss them._

Black and white videos played on a loop at various stations within the exhibit. The Captain dressed in a uniform that wouldn’t have been practical in the field, surrounded by actors dressed as soldiers. The Captain, crouched and speaking to a few children in an advertisement for victory gardens, then saving metal, then buying war bonds. 

The Captain and Doctor Cormier, in worn uniforms that spoke of months on the front. The Captain had her hair up in the same high ponytail as when the Soldier had fought her, her eyes in distinctive cateye glasses, but with relaxed shoulders and eyes bright in a way that the Soldier did not quite recognize.

The Captain spoke with her hands as much as her voice, tilting her head up toward Doctor Cormier’s with a smirk full of light and laughter. Doctor Cormier laughed, the sound muted in the old video but there was a vibrancy to it, a freedom, a happiness that shone through despite it.

_“Though all of the Howling Commandos survived the war, Doctor Cormier did not live to see peacetime’s true effects. Devoted to bringing Captain Sadler home, she went missing on an expedition while searching for the Captain’s crashed plane._

_She was the only Howling Commando to give her life in direct service to Captain Sadler,”_ a narrator droned. The screen dimmed to black before a picture of Doctor Cormier in a laboratory appeared, the video program beginning again.

_“Doctor Delphine Esther Cormier was a scientist from Lille, France…”_

_Delphine Esther Cormier._ The Soldier closed her eyes against the woman’s name, turned away from it--

And came face to face with her.

The painting was done in the same style as all the others in the exhibit, though more of a traditional portrait than the rest. The woman was seated, leaning toward the viewer. The woman was framed like the foolish idea of the mythical guardian angel, curls like gold, eyes warm, face kind. Light came from behind her, light came through the gauzy white fabric of her dress, light came _from_ her.

_Delphine Cormier through the Eyes of Another,_ read the title on the plaque.

The Soldier was suddenly standing inches from the painting, close enough that she could make out the miniscule brushstrokes. The Soldier did not move, did not blink, did not understand, but stared at this portrait of a woman sharply, fiercely.

_Hungrily._

As if the Soldier was trying to recognize her.

As if the Soldier wanted to find her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of Krystal and the Winter Soldier--hope that makes up for the fact that it's a more filler-y chapter than I'd like. As always, massive, massive thanks and love to Noelle and Chaya (therenegadegabbai on tumblr)--they are the absolute best.
> 
> I am on tumblr at elizaskylers, though I'm on a temporary and unintentional hiatus thanks to...well, life. I promise that any/all questions you send that way will be answered eventually, though!
> 
> I love you all, and have the fabulous weeks you deserve <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again guys! Sorry for the six-month wait, I hope it's worth it :) A massive shout-out to my beta, Noelle, and to Chaya (therenegadegabbai on tumblr), and to everyone who's stuck with this story so far. This wouldn't be here without you guys <3
> 
> Comments are always loved and criticism definitely encouraged. I'm on tumblr at probablytatiana and would love to talk to you about the fic, Delphine Cormier, or really anything at all. 
> 
> Thank you so, so much for reading, and I'll see you next week!


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